…extending through the years of childhood and adolescence in his [or her] relations with both parents, [a child] builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any variety of situations; and on those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life.

John Bowlby, Separation, Anxiety, and Anger

Introduction

Custody determinations are not simple. In fact, there are often complications which are not readily discernible to judges, lawyers, counsellors, or even the parents and children. Such a “complication” occurs when a divorcing parent or parents attempt to brainwash or program their children during a custody dispute. This issue has not been given frank or frequent treatment in either law or psychiatry. However, it has the potential to be the most destructive aspect in custody disputes.

It is apparent, from the limited studies that have been done, that mothers are usually the source of the brainwashing.1 Does this mean that there is a distinct gender differential at play? Two alternate and opposing explanations are available: women simply obtain custody with a greater prevalence this gives the mother the time and physical nexus necessary for successful brainwashing2; or out of a fear of losing sole custody due to the trends of joint custody and reverse discrimination in Family Law, mothers resort to brainwashing tactics.3

Both explanations, however, stem from a common basis: women are generally perceived as the “losers” in a divorce unless they get custody of the children.

Thus, the main catalyst for brainwashing is a combination of fear and loss – because a parent is alienated from the life they knew, they become alienating.4 Consequently, a father can brainwash his children just as easily as a mother provided he finds himself in a vulnerable position.5 The result is that the alienating parent becomes so self-oriented that he consciously or unconsciously detaches himself from the true dynamics of the situation. Tables 1, 2, 3, 5, & 6, in the appendix indicate that parents who brainwash tend to have the following characteristics: Upper-middle class with 2.5 children living in suburbia working in a professional occupation with a fairly high education level. From this one could conclude that brainwashing requires intelligence and skill. However, it may be that parents in a higher social class perceive their children as being another possession they could lose in the divorce. On a related note, they may be trying to keep up appearances as the “perfect” parent – having custody is an important part of this “role.” But one must not make generalizations.

Lower class, less educated parents do brainwash their children – though less frequently. Whether this is a product of social class or intelligence is uncertain. Perhaps the difference is in the brainwashing techniques – lower class parents may not brainwash with the same kind of formality and structure as the upper class, educated parents. Their techniques may not correspond with Clawar’s techniques. This could skew the data. While there is no final explanation for the data, they indicate that brainwashing is not a rare phenomenon. It has also been found that spouses who have a history of physically, socially-psychologically abusing their partner employ brainwashing simply as a new tool of abuse.7 Spousal abuse does not seem to have any social class boundaries. Thus, it is virtually impossible to determine a “brainwasher” profile. The fact is that any divorcing parent involved in a custody dispute – if sufficiently alienated from their own world – could have the potential to become alienating.

Theories

There are multiple theories accounting for brainwashing during custody. However, whether any, all, or a combination of these theories apply to a particular family will depend, to a large extent, on: (1) the distinct personalities of the child and parent and (2) situational factors.8

Parents may brainwash as a result of the typical animosity associated with any custody dispute – as a reaction to situational conflict. However, more sophisticated theories have been devised to explain the phenomenon. Alignment is one such theory.9 It is akin to the recently coined terms Parental Alienation Syndrome (P.A.S.) and the S.A.I.D. (He said, She said, Who said?) syndrome – both of which are similarly defined and had their origins in the United States.10 P.A.S. (or S.A.I.D.) is defined as

…a series of conscious programming techniques such as brainwashing as well as subconscious and unconscious processes by the alienating parent combined with the child’s own contribution denigrating the allegedly hated parent [often referred to as the lost, target, or alienated parent].11

P.A.S. manifests itself in several ways.12 The child usually gives frivolous or absurd rationalizations for deprecating the target parent. There is a loss of the ambivalence found in normal human relationships – the target parent is objectified by the alienating parent as an evil entity. In Humphries v. Humphries (1986), 59 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 1 at 3, the child had to call her natural father “the man” and her stepfather “Mr. Daddy.” Children will do what their parents tell them out of fear, to gain respite from their parent’s relentless interrogations or as the primary way to please their parents. Consequently,

P.A.S. children ‘express themselves like perfect little photocopies of the alienating parent and can see no good in the lost parent and no bad in the loved parent. The process resembles amnesia, wherein the child’s good memories appear to be completely destroyed.13

As a counterpart to this, brainwashed children feel little guilt for their actions.14 There are, however, two more serious manifestations-of P.A.S.: refusal of visitation and sexual abuse allegations.

Refusal of visitation is often so multi-determined that it is difficult to link the refusal directly with P.A.S. Johnston indicates that estimating the

…extent to which disengagement results from voluntary withdrawal of the parent or from being pushed out or excluded by the child [is onerous], because the dropping out is likely to be a subtle process of reaction and counteraction to the mutual disappointment inherent in a failed relationship.15

This emphasizes that P.A.S. is primarily a product of the pain associated with divorce. Parents and children become caught in a cycle. For instance, as the frequency of refusals to visit increase, parental disputes heighten, parents become more skeptical of the value of visitation, and the rejected parent engages in counter-rejection.16 It is this spiral effect which complicates the diagnosis of P.A.S. False sex abuse allegations against the target parent entail similar complexities.

Though the allegations may be false, they are usually “based upon a core of reality.”17 Normal physical affection or bathing a child can be construed by the alienating parent as having sexual overtones. Nonetheless, unlike refusal of visitation, there appear to be criteria which can be applied in the case of sexual allegations.18 Gardner has a seventy point criteria test [22 criteria for the accused, 21 for the child, and 27 for the accuser].19 As the number of positive indicators increase, the greater the likelihood that the allegation is valid.20 For instance,

The alleged perpetrator’s having a large collection of child pornographic materials is a very strong indicator of a true accusation. But a child may say ‘My daddy took a big knife and put it into my wee-wee hole and my poo-poo hole. There was a lot of bleeding. My mommy was there and she got very angry at my daddy and she gave him time out.’ Such a statement argues strongly for a false accusation.21

This sounds like common sense. In fact, most, of the criteria seem to be based on fairly obvious observations and differences between true and false incest victims can be found in their disclosures. Fakers tend to reveal details of the incest almost spontaneously and there are no significant changes in mood or affect. In addition, fakers often use adult terminology and make few retractions or restatements. Most telling, however, is that a true victim

…will rarely describe the sexual activity in the [abuser’s] presence, out of fear and guilt, while the faker will do this if the [alienator] is also present…[the alienator] often control[s] the child by monitoring his or her responses through eye contact and subtle facial expressions.22

Though criteria can be applied, this does not remove all complexity. P. (G.L.) v. P. (J.M.) (1990), 27 R.F.L. (3d) 64 recognized that

The person making the complaint, usually the mother, is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If the complaint is made for the first time in the course of a custody case, there is a tendency to disbelieve the allegation. If the allegation cannot be proven, the mother is viewed as vicious and destructive. Some judges have suggested that an unwarranted allegation of sexual abuse may be grounds to deny custody. [However, this reasoning is not based on the allegations being viewed as a manifestation of P.A.S.]. On the other hand, if a mother suspects abuse, but does not report or raise the issue, she runs the risk of being branded a poor parent and being subject to C.A.S. supervision.23

An even more problematic issue is that divorcing parents might be using the fact that reporting child abuse is in vogue as an apparently easy means of attacking their ex-spouses. The irony is that though the sex abuse allegations may be false, the children are being abused by becoming the pawn in their parent’s “games.”24 What is even more frightening is that

The number of virtual allegations of abuse may be expected to increase in the future because of their more subtle nature, the greater difficulty in disproving them, and because judges and lawyers familiar with P.A.S. are becoming increasingly skilled at detecting [its more obvious manifestations such as those illustrated in Table 8A of the appendix].25

Parents also resort to various brainwashing techniques in attempts to “win” their child over so that they can win them at the custody hearing. Clawar lists several techniques which he refers to as syndromes – suggesting that these tactics have a strong psychological component. Parents often use a combination of these techniques.26 An analysis of Table 8C in the appendix suggests that these techniques are not so effective that the children being brainwashed cannot detect them. Why, then, does the brainwashing continue? The children are afraid to confront their parents – without their parents they might not have a home to live in, food to eat, or clothes to wear. The “Who Me”, Middleman, and Circumstantial syndromes were most easily detected by children – perhaps because the child is more of a direct participant in these techniques. However, for the most part, the “no” awareness percentages were relatively high – some children may be able to detect the brainwashing but this may depend on age, maturity, and past life experiences.

Clawar also indicates some of the motivational factors connected with brainwashing: revenge, jealousy and self-righteousness; fear of losing the child, one’s identity and a sense of history; attempts to maintain the marital relationship through conflict; a desire for emotional and proprietary control and dominance.27 Underlying each of these motivations is an emotional need. This is further supported by the fact that the brainwashing becomes more intense when “situational factors intervene such as changes in location, holidays, court work, or prosperity of the target parent.”28 Also, the hostility of the alienating parent never seems to be proportional to the seriousness of the alienated parent’s actions.29 Related to this idea of “emotional need” is the proposition that brainwashing could be the result of a mental disorder.

The alienating parent may have a mental disorder which is caused by the emotional turmoil of divorce or the disorder could be inherent – distinguishing between the two is difficult. However, data from the Custody Project at the University of Toronto shows that in 72 percent of the families, at least one parent was psychiatrically disturbed.30 It has also been found that the presence of a mental disorder is connected to the propagation of a false sex abuse accusation.31 Nonetheless, there are no straightforward answers despite apparent linkages. This is evidenced in Lapierre v. Lapierre (1991), 34 R.F.L. 129 at 145:

I do not know if this action on her part was the act of a person filled with hatred, or if it was an act of gross bad judgment, or if this evidence was the evidence of-a mentally ill person…

There is also the added confusion of whether pre-divorce influences on children can be separated from the impact of brainwashing:

There are now a number of studies which show that long before parents separate, there are differences in the behaviour of their children as compared with those in other marriages where a divorce does not take place.32

These studies are prospective – before it is known there will be a divorce – so they are not biased by hindsight. Children with a deceased parent do not seem to be as adversely affected as those with separated or divorced parents. But there is variation among individual children.33 Thus, no definitive conclusions can be drawn although the effects on children – of either the brainwashing or the divorce or separation itself – are definite. P.A.S. children exhibit the same kinds of symptoms as abused children – depression, acting-out behaviours, fear of social situations. Basically, they are maladjusted.

There seems to be an overlap between several of these theories. For instance, minus a pre-existing mental disorder, can all of the “theories” be partially explained as being a reaction to the legal process?

There is ample reason to believe that much of the anger and disarray that accompany divorces are not so much a product of grief over the failed relationship as they are the result of what spouses perceive the other doing as part of the legal process.34

Since the legal process is both adversarial and often procedurally convoluted, there are several detrimental reactions which parties to a divorce may experience. The justice system is often wrongly idealized:

Children often invest hope in the judicial process; they fantasize that the judge can put a stop to the brainwashing.35

Clients [parents] become ever more dependent on the judgments made by their lawyers and less able to take initiative on their own.36

This relates to the decision-oriented nature of the legal process – even in custody disputes there is an implicit attempt to distinguish guilt from innocence.37 As a result, the positions of the parties harden to the point where the truth becomes no more than a paradigm for courtroom success. But what about the fact that between 97 to 99 percent of all divorces are settled prior to trial.38 Does this not obviate some of the negativity associated with the adversarial process?

Part of the routine is the use of the impending trial to generate anxiety in the clients that causes them to make the concessions necessary to compromise and settle the case.39

This suggests that even if a case is settled, it is generally a forced settlement – out of fear that a trial would be “unsuccessful.” But what is success? According to Margulies, a successful divorce is one in which “all farnily members are thriving five years after the divorce.”40 However, this definition is not obvious to most lawyers or clients – they want immediate success. Due to this mind-set, it is not surprising that parents resort to brainwashing – it becomes just another “legal” tactic.

Legal Implications

Gardner believes that the more recent judicial preference for joint custody has contributed to P.A.S.’s prevalence: the alienating parent fears either that shared parenting will be too difficult or that joint custody will keep past conflicts alive. The latter point is paradoxical since brainwashing – as a solution to parental fear – does not prevent conflicts, it merely produces new ones. Nevertheless, the answer is not to return to a sole custody system – children need both parents – but for the court to recognize P.A.S. Other than in Quebec, the Canadian legal system has not explicitly recognized an identifiable syndrome such as P.A.S. An article in the Montreal Gazette (November 30, 1992) entitled “Dirty Tricks penalized in Custody Battles: Courts frown on parents who turn kids against spouses” indicates how the legal system in Quebec is aware of the severe implications of P.A.S. for children. In R..M. v. B. R.. [Unreported, 1994] Quebec C.A., the court made three important pronouncements regarding P.A.S.: (1) P.A.S. is neither purely objective and scientific nor purely legal; (2) the court must examine the parent’s conduct in the context of the child’s interest; and (3) expert evidence on P.A.S. should be given extensive weight. It is also significant that most of the Quebec P.A.S. cases went to the Court of Appeal.41 This emphasizes the initial “doubt” surrounding the validity of P.A.S. Nonetheless, the penalty imposed upon alienating parents has been severe – loss of custody. It seems as though Quebec children’s-rights advocates have been the main source of getting P.A.S. recognized in As well, in Sherbrooke, Quebec there is a group called PAIN – Parental Alienation Information Network. The ACAB group in St. John’s, Newfoundland seems to be following this model, though on a lesser scale.

Nonetheless, there have been some advances in the Common Law provinces. In Rutherford v. Rutherford (1986), 4 R.F.L. (3d) at 459 the court did show insight into the rationale underlying P.A.S.:

The process [of brainwashing] may be so subtle and so slow that it escapes notice until too late…I hope the parties will take a step back and examine their own actions and motives rather than simply the actions and motives they perceive in the other…

Other courts have taken different attitudes. Some courts have simply labelled a parent’s brainwashing behaviour as peculiar. “This foolish man did so much in such a diabolical fashion that it all becomes almost unbelievable.”42 Other courts seem to be making excuses for a parent’s behaviour: “…neither party is without imperfections.”43 In Humphries v. Humphries (1986), 59 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 1 at 6 there was a sense of flitility:

I cannot by order change Mrs. H.’s attitude nor has time. I cannot by order prevent her from communicating in many indirect ways the negative feeling she has about Mr. Humphries to her daughter. I conclude that I must sacrifice Rhiannon’s long term gain from access to her father to her current emotional health.

Instead, the judge is sacrificing Rhiannon to the mental tortures imposed by Mrs. H.’s brainwashing. Lapierre v. Lapierre (1991), 34 R.F.L. 129 at 156 similarly held: “I am not here to solve the problems of P., however caused. I am here to stand as parens patriae to the children.” Though it is positive that the court emphasized the child’s interests, the child’s interests will not be adequately addressed as long as the court fails to address P.A.S.

At times, the courts appear to be so innovative that the real issue — the brainwashing — is either ignored or treated as a secondary problem which will somehow resolve itself:

…there will be less reason for conflict between their parents [if decisions regarding visitations are left to the children]. A great deal of the trouble in the past has been caused by the rigid timetable…I have more confidence in them to behave reasonably than I have in their parents…44

Similarly, the courts turn away from P.A.S. for it does not seem to fit conveniently into a legal framework:

While there is no denying that courts have a difficult job at best, on balance it would appear that the prevailing tendency has been toward delaying judgment in the hope that the problem will go away, solve itself, or at the very least prove that no judgment is preferable to a wrong judgment.45

But the role of the court in cases of P.A.S. must go beyond simply determining who gets custody and when P.A.S. must be given direct consideration. Judges must not only specifically refer to it in their decisions – P.A.S. should be the basis for a major portion of their ratio:

…the precedent of clear, forceful judgment may deter some parents from beginning the alienation of their children.46

If parents who engage in P.A.S. know that aware judges may give custody to the innocent parent, and perhaps even apply sanctions against parents who use a child to prevent the other parent’s access to the child, the P.A.S., which is itself a form of child abuse, may suffer a fatal and well-deserved setback.47

Currently, however, this is not the trend. In fact, the judge in Humphries v. Humphries (1986), 59 Nfld. & P.E.I.R. 1 at 5 would not order access “merely to ensure that intransigent behaviour in other parents is discouraged.” It is not surprising that deterrence is not a priority given that the seriousness of P.A.S. has not been judicially recognized.

In the United States, the courts are taking more steps towards acknowledging P.A.S.48 In Laurel Schutz v. Richard Schutz (1985), Judge Feder used strong, though somewhat metaphorical, language regarding P.A.S.:

The court has no doubt that the cause of the blind, brainwashed, bigoted, belligerence of the children toward the father grew from the soil nurtured, watered and tilled by the mother. The court is thoroughly convinced that the mother breached every duty she owed as the custodial parent to the non-custodial parent of instilling love, respect and feeling in the children for their father. Worse, she slowly dripped poison into the minds of these children, maybe even beyond the power of this court to find the antidote.49

Judge Feder’s emphasis on a parent’s “duty” is significant. From this perspective, P.A.S. is not just misbehaviour – it is the breach of a legal duty. By placing P.A.S. in a legal context, the American courts appear to have generated some sort of respect for P.A.S.

This is only a first step, however – the legal system must interface with the field of psychiatry and related fields so that conflicting assumptions and practices can be reconciled. Otherwise, the ratio of the dissent in Schutz or the Canadian ambivalence will continue to prevail:

Judge Hendry’s opinion [dissent in Schutz] was that the trial court’s order went beyond the mother’s legal duty to encourage legal visitation by requiring her to express opinions she does not hold and thus infringing on her rights of free speech.50

It is paradoxical that the court speaks of a violation of the parent’s rights when the child’s rights are being equally affected. This kind of judgment makes P.A.S. seem like a figment of the imagination. The judge appears to be condoning brainwashing by framing it as a “right of free speech.” Though this is an extreme example of judicial ignorance, it is not far from the more common judicial mistakes regarding P.A.S. In fact, reducing P.A.S. to pure legality – as in the majority in Schutz – is not ideal. The focus must not be on pure legality.

In general, the legal system appears to de-emphasize the distinction between physical access and social-psychological access – permission to love and identify with the other parent. Even when the court does highlight this distinction, it does not place it directly in the context of P.A.S. For instance, in Smith v. Smith (1991), 34 R.F.L. 367 at 369 the court referred to the “psychological safety of the children” and that the parents “manipulated the children to the point where they constantly live on an emotional roller-coaster.” Once again, the court uses metaphors instead of applying P.A.S.

Any argument that the law is normative should not dissuade proponents of P.A.S.:

…’normative’ in law seems to mean very little other than a specific preference, often in turn based on individualistic value judgments.51

Essentially, judicial interpretation of the law seems to be given priority over judicial interpretation of the facts in conjunction with informational authority on P.A.S. from the social sciences. Consequently, the court seems to be hiding from the evidentiary problems associated with P.A.S. cases.

Evidentiary Dilemmas

Evidentiary issues relating to custody disputes become even more intricate when P.A.S. enters the scene. Interviews with children may reveal verbal compliance but it must be t’evaluated against a behavioral context and with a full understanding of the development of the child’s assertions.”52 Brainwashed children tend to mimic what the alienating parent has told them. Even if a parent is not detected as being responsible for the child’s attitudes, parents often engage surrogate programrners as a means to avoid detection – usually members of the extended family, a new spouse or new in-laws.53 In addition, detection itself is not an elementary task. This can be illustrated by specific examples of statements made by brainwashed children accompanied by a detection commentary. It should be noted that there is a great deal of overlap between the various commentaries and that any differences are the product of subtle psychological analysis.54Table 7 in the appendix indicates that the methods most capable of detection involved either subtle linguistic or factual turns – contradictory statements, inappropriate or unnecessary information, use of indirect statements – or highly emotional, personalized tactics – character assault, restrictions on permission to be loved, good parent/bad parent, comparative martyr role, anxiety arousal. Thus, in this context, knowledge and love are no longer parental virtues – they are distorted into brainwashing mechanisms.

Thus, detection is not a matter that can be left solely to a judge or lawyer. In fact, sometimes lawyers act in a collusive nature – whether knowingly or unknowingly: (1) to unscrupulously extend the litigation and their profits rather than resolve the conflict and P.A.S. or (2) due to their ignorance of P.A.S., they misinterpret the evidence and their client’s motivations. As well, children often act in a collusive nature as a consequence of being brainwashed:

Children suffering with P.A.S. may present the judge with a convincing picture.. these children have a way of ‘snow balling’ even experienced psychologists and psychiatrists.55

Parents who brainwash also tend to do quite well on the witness stand – they have learned how to manipulate others and colour their behaviours in socially acceptable ways. Another related evidentiary complication pertains to the child’s experiences with previous interviewers:

The greater the number of previous interviews, the greater the likelihood the child’s description will become routinized and will resemble the litany typically provided in early interviews by the child…56

[In Thatcher v. Thatcher (1980), 16 R.F.L. (2d) 263 at 273, there was evidence] that Regan, already having been seen by four psychiatrists, had become quite experienced and sophisticated in these interviews.

In addition, suggestibility during the interviewing process must be accounted for. It may be difficult to distinguish this suggestibility from the alienating parent’s suggestions.

Another detection hurdle is that many alienating parents use a potpourri of techniques to brainwash which do not fall within any identifiable theory. Evidence of this comes from the interviews with ACAB members. One alienating parent used repetition of a single phrase “Daddy wouldn’t let this happen to you [the brainwashing], if he loved you.” Another parent would get the stepfather to beat up the child so that the alienated father would get mad and call the police. Once the police arrived, the alienated father was the one who was arrested for disturbing the peace – putting his character into jeopardy for any future assessments. Another alienating parent tried to get the alienated parent to sign a t’contract’t – with no.lawyer involvement – wherein the alienating parent would ask for no child support or maintenance if the alienated parent would never have anything to do with the child. It is clear that these techniques would not be easily recognized unless the family was under surveillance almost twenty-four hours a day.

There are possible methods to overcome these evidentiary twists. If kept on the witness stand for an extra long period of time, the alienating parent may eventually make inconsistent statements which will reveal their true actions and ultimate goals.57 Similarly, special cross-examination or interviewing techniques may be used. For instance, Gardner has provided a series of explicit questions for judges to use when dealing with children.58 Whether such direct questions will produce genuine answers may depend on the degree of brainwashing present. A more effective method may be the use of corroborating evidence:

[If the parent is] aware that the evaluator would have other sources of information regarding the child – from the other parent, from clinical interviews with the children, and from outside agencies, such as schools, pediatricians, and protective services – [this may limit] an inclination to distort.59

However, the effectiveness of this method may depend on the strength of the alienating parent’s conviction. But in Radford v. Cassiano, [Unreported, 1995] Ont.C.J. – Prov. Div., the presence of a psychological assessment resulted in the alienating parent withdrawing her claim to terminate access after the third day of trial.

Specific methods have been illustrated in various cases. In W. (K.M.) v. W. (D.D.), [Unreported, 1993] Ont. C.J. – Prov. Div., the court included questions of an adverse nature and avoided asking leading questions.60 Lawyers must be careful not to use strong language without having any real foundation for it – without making any reference to P.A.S. This happened in R.. v. R..W. [Unreported, 1993] Ont. C.J. – Gen. Div., wherein the judge stated:

The defence is inviting this court to believe that for four days Mrs. W. would have drilled these lies into the child’s mind.

If counsel had explained that P.A.S. involves brainwashing that extends beyond four days, perhaps the judge would not have misconstrued counsel’s attempt at portraying the truth as an attempt to attack the other party’s character or credibility. Lacaille v. Manger, [Unreported, 1994] Ont. C.J. – Prov. Div., stresses that the court must make allowances for the fact that children:

…do not necessarily see the world as adults do…a flaw, such as a contradiction, in a child’s testimony should not be given the same effect as a similar flaw in the testimony of an adult.

This makes detecting P.A.S. even less straightforward – is the flaw an indicator of P.A.S. or merely the “slip’ of a child probably on the witness stand for the first time?

Two other “methods” are based on the personal interests of children and their parents, respectively. Eighty percent of brainwashed children want the process detected and terminated; 70 percent felt relief when it was discovered. Consequently, 90 percent of these children cooperate in investigations either covertly or overtly. Some children even use secret language to inform others: “Once she starts talking about my dad, she can’t seem to stop.”61 Some alienated parents have taken a more direct approach to counter P.A.S. MERGE [Movement for the Establishment of Real Gender Equality] suggests codifying the amount of access to which a father is entitled.62 In this way, P.A.S. would not interfere with a father’s natural right to have contact with his children. Feminist movements have volleyed for a similar right for alienated mothers.

Given the psychological elements of P.A.S., expert evidence is quite essential to its accurate detection. However, such evidence creates extensive controversy. While the court does encourage the admission of all relevant evidence, expert evidence regarding custody dispute issues has not been held to be definitive:

…psychologists should be clear that their job is to assist in gathering information, not to determine the result of the case…clarification of roles is important…experts should not offer social and moral judgments in the guise of scientific solutions.63

In R.. v. R.. W., [Unreported, 1993] Ont. C.J. – Gen. Div., the trial judge simply rejected the defence’s theory that the allegations of sexual abuse were contrived “without relating his findings to the evidence.” To make matters worse, he placed the onus upon the alienated parent to satisfy the court that the other parent brainwashed the child to believe that the alienated parent was guilty of sexual abuse. However, Lapierre v. Lapierre (1991), 34 R.F.L. 129 at 138 basically held that expert evidence has validity provided it does not overstep its function:

[Expert evidence is] to be just that, assistance. It is for the court, and the court alone, to determine the matter. Yet, were it not for those professional glimpses through wispy veils, I would have, without hesitation whatsoever, labelled P. as an out and out liar.

Nevertheless, “blind adherence to diagnostic criteria could be as damaging as ignoring these criteria.”64 For instance, psychological expertise sometimes becomes psycho-legal expertise wherein

. . .the psychologist [is] cast as the hired gun engaged to put forth to the court the negative opinion of the contesting parent under the guise of an expert.65

It is interesting that expert evidence is questioned because it might be a “guise” when, in fact, the evidence is being tendered to disclose the guise of the alienating parent. Nonetheless, there are situations where expert evidence would not advance a correct assessment of P.A.S. In W. (K.M.) v. W. (D.D.), [Unreported, 1993] Ont. C.J. – Prov. Div., the judge severely criticized a psychologist’s assessment and preferred a Children’s Aid Society worker’s opinion.66 The judge described it as a “‘blitzkrieg assessment’ conducted in 6 hours on one day.” Dr. Albin even admitted that

…he was selective in the information contained in his report.. He disavowed the evidence of other investigators and set himself up as the only viable assessor…

An additional consideration is that no expert is perfect – even the best trained experts will not always reach conclusions of absolute certainty.67

The problem is that the majority of judges do not take the less restrictive view found in Lapierre v. Lapierre (1991), 34 R.F.L. 129. Nanji v. Nanji (1987), 8 R.F.L. (3d) 221 held the court is not to “rubber stamp expert opinion.” In itself this is not detrimental but, in practice, judges go further than simply limiting the weight given to expert evidence. They equate their discretion with knowledge of the facts and equate knowledge of the facts with an intimate understanding of the family dynamics. But how can a judge know and understand all of the substantial incidents which have accumulated during critical stages of a child’s life? In Thatcher v. Thatcher (1980), 16 R.F.L. (2d) 263 at 271 the judge perceived social status as being synonymous with good parenting:

…one expects from a member of the legislature a greater respect for the law than has been demonstrated by him throughout this conflict. One would expect a father, particularly one of such eminence, to show by example to his sons that the law is to be obeyed and the truth told.

Despite the fact that this reasoning did prevent Mr. Thatcher from getting access,

P.A.S. should have been applied instead. But P.A.S. is neither a legal term nor does it fall within legal precedent. This should not be a determining factor. In Martiniuk v. Martiniuk (1978), 2 R.F.L. (2d) 39 at 47 Hughes J. explained the process behind his reasoning:

No book of knowledge contains clear-cut answers as to whether I have reached a correct 6r incorrect decision. Like so many decisions that have to be made in matrimonial matters, knowledge of the law, limited as it may be, is of a secondary nature and has played little part in the decision arrived at.

I cling to no precedent nor authoritative text as supporting the result I have arrived at. In deciding this problem, it has been a matter, after weighing and considering all of the evidence, of drawing on such experience, reason, and common sense that I have at my command, admittedly limited in each instance.

I am mindful that in light of the evidence of Dr. Shepel and his supporting brief that perhaps there is some risk involved in deciding as I have. On balance, I have concluded that cannot deter me from ordering as I feel I must do, and, of course, responsibility for the decision must rest with me.

Though Hughes J. takes responsibility for his decision and makes legal knowledge subservient to comrnon sense and experience, he does not mention P.A.S. Further, it is unlikely that his experiences – being “admittedly limited” – would include P.A.S.

As long as this cycle continues, P.A.S. will remain an ominous term which seems to have no reality outside a social science textbook. This cycle has another negative implication for P.A.S. progress:

…losing parties in a custody or visitation question have a natural, vested interest in contesting the findings of a psychologist. Because trial courts are ordinarily given wide latitude in making custody determinations, complaints regarding the professional behaviour of practitioners may be one of the few avenues open for appeal to a litigant who has lost an opening legal round over custody.68

If P.A.S. has its foundations in psychology and psychological testimony is either ignored, devalued, or openly criticized, then it would seem that P.A.S. has little chance of survival – let alone initial recognition.

Solutions

“The key to the solution usually lies within the child.”69 However, as illustrated by the evidentiary dilemmas, the child’s true mental state is often inaccessible. As well, often the brainwashing does not have to continue – eventually, the child internalizes the alienating parent’s thoughts and opinions. In the absence of the brainwashing, P.A.S. may appear to be eradicated when it has actually become a permanent state of mind. Thus, as stated above, the child must be the focus of any solution. Gardner’s radical treatment – to be used in extreme cases of P.A.S. – seems to reflect this reality. The treatment involves:

…forcibly removing the child from the custody of the [alienating] parent and placing him or her with the ‘hated’ other parent…with supervised access reinstated gradually.70

But when P.A.S. is placed in a legal context – either in the courtroom or settlement proceedings – Gardner’s intervention has resulted in

…the major portion of the blame for the problem being placed upon the parent who is believed to fuel the child’s alienation. That is, less attention is being paid to what the child brings to the situation, whereas the hated parent is viewed entirely as the victim.71

Gardner’s rationale is that the degree of alienation is directly proportional to the time spent alienating. Thus, removal of the child from the alienator should stop the alienation – but this does not mean that the alienating effects are automatically eliminated. For the most part, however, the courts seem to have moved in Gardner’s direction. In Martiniuk v. Martiniuk (1978), 2 R.F.L. (2d) 39 at the court held that

To deny the father his access rights, given the conduct of the mother and her common law husband, would be tantamount to allowing the parties in error to ‘beat the system.’

In Herbeniuk v. Herbeniuk (1985), 44 Sask. R. 52 at 60 a similar approach was taken:

I am not, however, satisfied that the expressed concerns justify a complete denial of access. This, in my view, would merely serve to punish the children for their father’s indiscretions.

Though these cases do not reflect a willingness to reverse custody – as Gardner suggests – the emphasis on not denying access to the alienated parent appears to be a less radical version of the “radical intervention.” Rutherford v. Rutherford (1986), 4 R.R.L. (3d) at 458-459, however, reveals that the more likely — and disturbing — scenario is that

…access will be terminated if it proves sufficiently unsettling to the child, even where the problem may be laid squarely at the feet of the custodial parent.

This is an unfortunate product of being unaware of P.A.S.

The Family Systems framework seems to be more preventative than Gardner’s intervention solution. This framework is premised on the notion that the family is a dynamic system which requires cohesion and continuity even after a divorce or separation. Its supporters contend that

Through participating in the decision-making process, members of the family are more likely to be supportive of the child custody arrangement – [hence, less conflict and less brainwashing].72

Psychological interventions can also be preventative if instigated early enough. According to Roger Ulrich,

Awareness of our own needs and attitudes is our most effective instrument for maintaining our own integrity and control over our own reactions.73

Alienating parents lack such insight into their behaviour. Thus, eradicating the alienation must also involve environmental modifications and knowledge of the actual brainwashing techniques, the motives behind them and their effects. Consequently,

Talk therapy with no focus, no measurements, and no time line is often a waste of time in [brainwashing] cases…it may be counterproductive because nothing may be discovered when, in fact, there are real social causes of the problems. Also, surfacing issues without an awareness of the causal agents may lead to serious mistakes in diagnosis and recommendations to parents and/or the courts.74

Attribution therapy has also been recommended for P.A.S. situations. If the alienating parent can learn how to make interactive attributions – not blaming a single party or incident -regarding the reasons for the divorce, then it is less likely that they would brainwash.75 However, even this forrn of therapy may not be completely effective:

It is still unclear whether interactive explanations for divorce lead to better post-divorce adjustment or whether people who make interactive attributions in general are just happier, more confident, and more active people, or whether both are true. [Perhaps the outcomes are personality-oriented].76

To further limit the effectiveness of psychological interventions, approximately 15 percent of children felt that mental health experts could not help their situation:

So what can anybody do? This has been going on for years. We’ve seen more therapists than I can count. Nothing against you, but if you don’t agree with my mom [or dad], she’ll [or he’ll] try to get you fired too!77

Thus, even court ordered changes in therapists may be futile for the alienating parent will simply seek out another therapist who supports his or her position. On rare occasions, the court acts as a kind of therapist. This was evident in Metz v. Metz (1991), 34 R.F.L. 255 at 260:

…the parents must earn their children’s affections rather than depend upon the court to order the children to associate with them at certain times.

If I have misjudged Mr. Nanji or if there is a change of heart, the appropriate adjustment can be made. I am even hopeful that the parties might work something out between themselves.

Basically, court orders cannot be a substitute for the facilitation of an understanding between the parties – it is the latter process which will eventually break the P.A.S. impasse. However, this attitude does not frequent many ratios and even Metz and Nanji do not incorporate P.A.S. into their reasoning.

Nonetheless, the court is usually guided by the Best Interests Test. While this test is theoretically sound, it is not the best means to deal with P.A.S.78 Many courts have held that “if [the] attitude persists against the non-custodial parent, [then] the child should stay with the custodial [alienating] parent.”79 However, this is a superficial application of the Best Interests Test for the child is being forced to stay with an abusive parent simply because brainwashing is not currently within the court’s definition of abuse. For instance, assertions about parent-contact preferences must be proven via careful interviewing techniques since 65 percent of children change their assertions immediately when asked the right questions in the right sequence:

Interviewer: If mom said it was okay, would it help you to see dad more often?Child: She’d never say it, no way.Interviewer: But if she would?Child: Yeah, I guess so.80

Most alienating parents try to use the Best Interests Test to their own advantage. This is referred to as the Independent Thinker phenomenon – “I want him to see his father [or mother], but if he doesn’t want to, I will fight to ensure that his decision is respected.”81

Another discrepancy in the. application of the Best Interests Test is that there is no consistency regarding the age-preference connection. In Lapierre v. Lapierre (1991), 34 R.F.L. 129 the wishes of children aged seven and ten were not considered determinative By contrast, a child of eleven in Metz v. Metz (1991), 34 R.F.L. 255 had his preferences respected even though it was apparent that a parent may have influenced his choice. Smith v. Smith (1991), 34 R.F.L. 367 at 370 takes a more realistic approach than Metz:

Unfortunately, Michael is at an age (12) when he is able to make certain decisions for himself, but is not yet free from the influences of others…

Radford v. Cassiano, [Unreported, 1995] Ont. C.J. – Prov. Div. is perhaps the most extreme application of the Best Interests Test and its approach could be quite damaging where P.A.S. is an issue:

…preferences of children of this age (6 and 7 years old) are generally not determinative of the issue, but when they are so strongly held, apparently arising from their own wishes and being reasonable under the circumstances, they should be taken into consideration…82

However, a P.A.S. child will generally have strong views because of the intensity of the brainwashing and these views may appear reasonable because the alienating parent’s aim is to convince others that the other parent is bad. Perhaps if the best interests of the child were considered in the home rather than being placed within the strictures of a legal test, then P.A.S. would not even be an issue.

The Custody Project at the Department of Psychiatry (University of Toronto) has attempted to combine the psychiatric and legal approaches. Custody Project involves a direct link between court-initiated referrals and child psychiatrists. However, there must be consent between all family members to receive counselling. As well, court-initiated referrals usually take place after litigation has begun., It is in this regard that Custody Project is most innovative:

[If initiated once the litigation has begun], it was hypothesized that this would be months at least after the emotional crisis of separation. On the basis that intervention might be more effective much earlier in the separation process, the members agreed to take referrals initiated by lawyers in the hope that these would be prior to litigation.83

Perhaps this kind of referral system would help reduce the percentage of brainwashed children who reach the point of no return to less than its current 5 percent.84

Given the Custody Project’s positive outcomes one would assume that mediation would be effective in P.A.S. situations. However, most P.A.S. cases reactivated after an agreement was reached even if legal sanctions such as the guilty party pays legal and therapy fees were attached. Catherine Foster, a mediator at the Unified Family Court in St. John’s, emphasized that mediation is not equal to treatment – it is front-end preventative and, in this sense, it is limited. There are three other reasons why mediation generally fails:

(1) The ‘day’ in court serve[s] as an avenue for the programmers and brainwashers to carry on their crusade to demonstrate the ‘truth’…84

(2)…one of the feuding parties is insincere and has little wish to solve the problem. The reason is that insincerity, conscious or unconscious, is one of the hallmarks of the alienating parent.86

(3).. the lack of a swift, forceful court judgment is often perceived by the alienator as denoting approval of the alienating behaviour.87

Mediation’s only advantage regarding P.A.S. is that the brainwashing might be insinuated during the mediation process. This insight may assist therapists, lawyers, or judges in their subsequent assessments.

But are any of these solutions feasible? Though each theory has its flaws, at least each theory is, by its very existence, acknowledging that custody disputes are not clear-cut. Even Gardner’s theory – which explicitly deals with P.A.S. – is not so encompassing and definitive that it can stand on its own. If the virtues of each of the previously mentioned solutions could be unified into a single theory, perhaps P.A.S. could be controlled, if not countered. However, the direct experiences of alienated parents illustrate how few “solutions” are actually being implemented.

Interviews with some members of the ACAB group underline how the “authorities” appear to be oblivious to finding solutions. They felt that more accountability and less apathy on the part of the police, social services, and the courts is essential. But is this an emotional overreaction or a reaction to a real problem? Would these individuals feel invisible, like non-persons, if they were genuinely receiving help? For instance, Mr. A told of a social worker’s naivete or deliberate blindness during a home assessment. His daughter was asleep when the social worker came for the visit. But after a brief discussion the mother brought the social worker to the daughter’s room. The daughter immediately showed the worker a doll and how her father touched her. The social worker believed, without doubt, that this was unsolicited. In addition, home assessments are usually conducted over extremely short time periods [1-1/2 to 2 hours] and often the assessor has no real qualifications [in Mr. A.’s case, the assessor only had a Bachelor of Nursing and a Masters of Education – nothing relating to social work or psychology].

As a consequence of like scenarios, many of the ACAB members have resorted to representing themselves — at least then they can expose the flaws in such “evidence” and raise P.A.S. without having to deal with their lawyer telling them that P.A.S. is fool’s gold. Some members have even proposed solutions:

(1) Consistent use of the polygraph on the alienating parent and on the brainwashed children.

(2) Develop a Children’s Law which is a distinct branch of Family Law.

(3) Place stricter requirements on the content, timing, and enforcement of court orders. For instance,even when sexual abuse charges are dropped, supervised access is maintained for abnormally long periods of time.

(4) The legal system and the mental health system should not fall into the trap of believing that the child is in a ‘stage’ and will probably change their mind about the alienated parent when they get older. The courts should be more informed about child development theories.

These solutions, if implemented, could bring P.A.S. to the forefront. However, in the absence of legal authority, it is unlikely that the courts will be quick to adopt the recommendations of a support group – there is the risk of group self-interest. Nonetheless, with time, perhaps such groups as ACAB will gain more respect from the courts. Maybe then, P.A.S. will gain similar respect.

Conclusions

Whether P.A.S. is a new phenomenon or one which has always been present, it deserves more attention. While there is the danger of placing too much authority in a “syndrome,” there is the even greater risk of allowing innocent children to be victimized in their own homes by their “caregivers.” Children do not choose that their parents divorce -they are victims of circumstance and if that circumstance results in P.A.S. their plight becomes that much worse. Cartwright expresses this idea eloquently:

We often speak of preserving family values, but even disintegrated [divorced] nuclear families have values and rights which must be preserved and respected to prevent further disintegration and total collapse. To do less is to sacrifice entire generations of children on the altar of alienation, condemning them to familial maladjustment and inflicting on them lifelong parental loss.88

This parallels John Bowlby’s words quoted from Separation, Anxiety, and Anger at the outset of the essay.

Underlying all of the theories are three fundamental ideas: (1) brainwashing is a complex product of pain, emotional need, and a desire to “win”; (2) the legal context of divorce intensifies the brainwashing; (3) brainwashing can easily be disguised because it is generally founded on a core of reality. P.A.S. will never become more than a theory, however, if its practical, legal implications are not resolved. P.A.S. must be recognized by the legal system yet, at the same time, it must not be transformed into a legal term. If P.A.S. is to make its way into the courtroom it must be shown the way by lawyers and judges. But, once inside, it has to speak for itself. Once P.A.S. has reached this point, evidentiary dilemmas will be less impenetrable – P.A.S. will be open to discussion which will heighten understanding.

Thus, to search for a solution to P.A.S. is illusory. P.A.S. is multi-faceted in terms of its onset, development, and outcomes. At this point, awareness of the existence of P.A.S. should be given optimum importance. Although this awareness may not encourage an immediate awareness in alienating parents, it may eventually create an atmosphere wherein parents will not feel the need to alienate. Perhaps this will happen when the legalities surrounding divorce become less alienating — when the truth is not being sacrificed for ‘justice” in custody battles. Only then can the parameters of P.A.S. be fully explored., Only then will custody battles have a chance of becoming custody evaluations.

APPENDIX

Sample Description:
Children with Programming/Brainwashing Parents

Number (N) 700
Age Range of Children Infancy through twenty years of age

TABLE 8CPercentage of Children Aware of Brainwashing Techniques Employed by Parents

Aware: the children understand that the messages sent were inappropriate attempts to influence their views and behaviors.

Techniques (as in Table 8B)

Awareness

Yes

No

1.

Denial-of-existence

10

90

2.

“Who Me”

a. Extended Family

5

95

b. Career

4

96

c. Living arrangements and travel

60

40

d. Activities

70

30

e. Associates

75

25

3.

Middleman

86

14

4.

Circumstantial

62

38

5.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him/her”

48

52

6.

Ally

30

70

7.

Morality

50

50

8.

Threat-of-withdrawal-of-love

9

91

9.

“I’m the only one who really loves you.”

5

95

10.

“You’re an endangered species”

4

96

11.

Rewriting reality

5

95

12.

Physical survival

10

90

TABLE 9Percentage of Parents Who Programme/Brainwash, by Intensity Level

Intensity Level (on average)

%

More than once per day

20

About once per day

20

More than once per week

10

Once per week

10

Occasionally

20

No detection of programming/brainwashing

20

TABLE 10Detection Techniques & Commentaries

Character assault (with moral overtones):Evaluator/Therapist/Judge: What do you like about being at Mom’s? (open-ended and positive question)Child: Mommy has lots of boyfriends who sleep over. Daddy says she’s a whore because the Bible says so.Commentary: Representative of externally imposed definition with negative moral judgments on the target parent. Note child did not answer the question – a frequent occurrence for programmed children.

Use of indirect statements:E/T/J: How did this weekend go? Does Mom/Dad have an opinion about the time you spend at Mom’s/ Dad’s?Child: When I get home, Mom says things like, ‘Too bad you had to go with your dad this weekend -you missed a great ski trip. I bet you only watched TV, as usual.’ Mom’s right, he’s boring.Commentary: Rather than encouraging a child to enjoy the time spent with a parent, the parent convinces the child that he will experience boredom. He will also be programmed to be thinking about what he’s missing, thereby mentally remaining in the mother’s home even though he is physically with his father.

Child appears as a mirror image of the programmer:E/T/J: Why do you think your father is trying so hard to make sure he has more time with you?Child: Dad doesn’t really love me or want me to live with him – he just wants custody to hurt mom.Commentary: Most children who are aware of their parents’ custody conflict do not interpret the legal battles as indicating;that they are not loved or that one parent wants to hurt the other, unless they have been so informed.

Brain Twirling:E/T/J: On the one hand, you say that the joint custody was good in a lot of ways. On the other hand, you say you don’t want it anymore. How come?Child: I always thought I wanted joint custody (equal time in this case), and it was working in the beginning. But then my dad started so much trouble with Mom, it just isn’t worth it anymore.Commentary: A programmer sends the child confused messages of both support and disdain for the relationship the child is having with the target parent. If both positive and negative messages are sent to the child about the target parent, the child will usually be most influenced by the negative ones. Also, the child needs civility and often creates an alliance with the programmer in an attempt to stop the intrapsychic and social conflict.

Coaching Behavior: E/T/J is at a home visitChild: [Upon entering her father’s home, a four-year-old exclaims this to the evaluators who are present for a home visit]:E/T/J: How do you know that?Child: My mommy told me to tell you he did.Commentary: The repetition of an idea by the programmer is one of the more easily detectable clues. Evaluators often can elicit this programming by asking direct questions, as in this case. However, at other times it is necessary to lead up to the source indirectly. Protectionistic responses by the child include ‘I just know, that’s all,’ or ‘It’s true.’ Pursuing the base of the information – actual observation, parental brainwashing, conjecture, other adults, overhearing a conversation – takes discretion and knowing when to drop a topic and return later. Rapport is often a key element in obtaining full disclosure.

Child threatens parent (reverse situation):E/T/J: I heard you say that you wanted to tell the judge certain things about your mom. What’s the story?Child: Yeah, I told my Mom she better do what I want, because my dad told me I should tell him whenever Mom does something wrong, because the judge will punish her.Commentary: Parents can become the powerless ones in custody conflicts. Children move in to fill the “power vacuum” with the help of a brainwashing parent. The target parent walks on eggshells with the child1 fearing that any disciplinary measures will be relayed and misinterpreted to the other parent and/or to the court.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK–(Marketwire – Aug. 3, 2010) – The Canadian Symposium for Parental Alienation Syndrome, (www.cspas.ca), today announced that their upcoming Annual Conference will take place in NYC. The conference is titled “Parental Alienation Syndrome: Past Present and Future”. Many consider this conference to be a landmark event in the history of mental health, in part because the American Psychiatric Association is now giving consideration to Parental Alienation Disorder (P.A.D.) for inclusion in the next edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, more often referred to as the DSM-5. There are some countries around the world that already recognize Parental Alienation as a diagnostic condition. As a recent example of this global shift, Spain’s Psychological Association did so in 2008.

“P.A.D. is a widespread disorder that is little understood and warrants serious study and attention by the mental health and legal community.”, states Dr. Amy J. Baker, a highly respected researcher in the field of parental alienation and the author of peer reviewed articles and books on the subject.”Inclusion of P.A.D. in the A.P.A.’s diagnostic book will go a long way towards creating awareness and helping children and families affected by this disorder.”

Parental Alienation Disorder has been defined as a mental condition in which a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent, (the preferred parent), and rejects a relationship with the other parent, (the alienated parent), without legitimate justification. The child’s maladaptive behavior & refusal to see one of the parents is driven by the false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous or an unworthy person.

The C.S.P.A.S conference will take place in NYC on October 2nd and 3rd at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Stern Auditorium. This conference is specifically geared towards the interests of mental health and family law professionals, but is also open to the general public. To register for this conference you can visit the C.S.P.A.S. website at http://www.cspas.ca

“We expect approximately 600 mental health professionals to register and attend the conference and of course everyone has a common interest in updating their clinical understanding of parental alienation because of so many new patients being referred for treatment.” stated Founder of the C.S.P.A.S. – Joseph Goldberg at a recent press conference.

In 2009 the C.S.P.A.S conference made headlines around the globe including the front page of the National Post Newspaper, Canada’s most widely circulated national daily publication. To register for this groundbreaking event, or learn more about C.S.P.A.S. please visit http://www.cspas.ca or call call 647-476-3170.

About C.S.P.A.S

Founded in 2008 by Joseph Goldberg, The Canadian Symposium for Parental Alienation Syndrome is an educational organization assisting mental health professionals, family law lawyers, family mediators and other professionals to better understand parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome / disorder. Their goal is to assist children and families in need of educational information and referrals to professionals with a specialized expertise for counseling, psychological or psycho-educational services. Parents and professionals in both the family law and mental health communities will be able to locate a number of experts in parental alienation by simply visiting their website. C.S.P.A.S also disseminates information and literature to professionals and to parents. They maintain a strictly educational position and have no political affiliations. The C.S.P.A.S. does not accept funding from any organization affiliated with parental rights, nor do they take a position in favor of or in opposition to equal parenting. For more information visit http://www.cspas.ca.

Living On The Outside Looking In

In today’s society, nearly half of children are being born to single mothers. Combine this with the high rate of divorce and a parent (usually the father) ends up on the outside looking in, wondering what is happening with his children. His access to them is limited and controlled, either by the court, or by the mother. For this reason, access rights need to be defined clearly to avoid later issues arising as to whether a certain day, weekend, or holiday belongs to one parent or the other.

What Needs To Be Known

On the following pages, you will find information on:

What Parents Need To Discuss On Access Rights;

Sample Visitation Schedule;

Sample Long Distance Visitation Schedule;

How To Address Denial Of Access;

Collecting Evidence Of Denial Of Access For The Courts;

GrandParent Access Rights;

Child Refusing To Visit;

You will learn that hiring an attorney is not necessarily a first step to address denial of access. Many state or local governments have developed procedures for enforcing visitation orders. In addition, the Federal government has made funding available to states for developing model programs to ensure that children will be able to have the continuing care and emotional support of both parents. Check with your local CSE agency and clerk of court to see what resources are available to you and to find out about laws that address custody and visitation.

Denial of access is a major problem, even with court orders in place. According to the US Dept. of Health & Human Services study, “Survey of Absent Parents” over 60% of mothers regularly violates the access rights of fathers, cutting off all contact between the children and their fathers within five years. Unlike child support, mothers are not jailed, even with multiple Contempt of Court ruling against them for violating the father’s court ordered visitation rights. However, Michigan has recently passed a law to limit the driving privileges of a custodial parent violating the access orders.

The best way to address repeated denial of access rights is to have the court order the offending parent to provide the court with a cash or certified bond that is forfeited if the orders are again violated.

In “Parental Alienation must be excluded” (Capitol Weekly, Feb. 8), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. While Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus often do noble work in aiding battered women, Thymes misunderstands several key aspects of Parental Alienation and child custody battles.

The Family Law Section of the State Bar of California explains that alienation tactics often include:

“[C]ancel[ing] the other parent’s visit without telling the child that the visit has been cancelled, creating a ‘let down’ for the child when that parent does not ‘show up’ for the visit. Threats could also be made against the child for wanting to have visitation with the other parent – ‘Fine, if you want to see [your other parent] tonight, then you are grounded for the rest of the week.’

Guilt can also be used to influence a child to avoid visitation – ‘I’m not feeling well and I wish you would stay here with me, but if you have to see [your other parent] I will understand.’ Rewards can also be used – ‘Sure, you can see [your other parent] today, but I thought we would go play laser tag with your friends today.’”

Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 “high conflict” divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied.

At Fathers & Families, we receive thousands of heart-wrenching calls and letters from parents whose children have been taught to fear or hate them. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children.
Thymes asserts that recognizing Parental Alienation as a legitimate issue in custody cases would endanger abused children. But in genuine cases of domestic violence or child abuse, all sides agree that courts need to protect children from abusive parents. Yet there is a large body of evidence which shows that false accusations of domestic violence are a major problem in child custody cases.

Unfortunately, Shelter Outreach Plus, like many domestic violence service providers, displays a troubling lack of awareness of this problem. Thymes writes:
“At Shelter Outreach plus, we render any claims of Parental Alienation invalid…we absolutely do everything we can to keep [the father alleged to be abusive] away from those children [including] our legal advocates through restraining orders…”

Thymes apparently feels that a mere accusation equals the truth, and that judges should not even consider whether an accuser is misleading the court.
Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus favor AB 612, a bill to bar litigants or custody evaluators from making any reference to Parental Alienation in family court. This deeply-flawed bill, which will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee this spring, is opposed by practically all organizations which represent the professionals who work in the family law field.

Those listed as opposed include: the Judicial Council; the California Judges Association; the Family Law Section of the State Bar; the California Psychological Association; the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists; the Association of Family Conciliation Courts; and numerous others.

The California Psychological Association writes that the bill ignores the “significant scientific and agreed-upon knowledge base of the last 30 years on children who are alienated” and describes AB 612 as a “scientifically inaccurate measure [which] assumes the truth of any accusation of abuse.”

The Assembly analysis explains that AB 612 is so extreme that if it is passed, in court “something as simple as a child not wanting to visit a parent cannot, potentially as a matter of law, be caused by the other parent.”
The analysis notes:

”[A]ny broad restriction on the information the court can consider could well unintentionally compromise the court’s ability to make determinations that are in children’s best interests, and could inadvertently compromise child safety.”

Certainly there are fathers (and mothers) who have alienated their children through inept parenting, narcissism, drug or alcohol problems, or abuse, and who attempt to shift the blame to their exes by falsely claiming Parental Alienation. Sometimes, as research by Janet R. Johnston Ph.D. of San Jose State University confirms, Parental Alienation exists but is only one of several factors causing a deterioration of the parent-child bond.

Sometimes parental alienators are unaware of their harmful actions.

Nevertheless, Parental Alienation is a serious problem. When fact-finding in custody cases, judges and custody evaluators must be able to properly consider all available evidence. When abuse is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration.

Several brilliant expositions have been written about the complex web of lies and corruption that have been inserted insidiously into America through such Acts as VAWA, the Family Law and Child support agencies working in turn through an unholy alliance between Federal and States governments.

A network of misandric, biased, criminal ‘Shelters’ has covered the land with a new and vicious corruption at grass-roots level, purportedly to ‘assist’ women but in fact act as a conduit for corruption and criminality.

I only have to mention Professor Stephen Baskerville’s ‘Taken into Custody’ work for many at MND to understand. Or Professor Carey Roberts’ exposes.

But little gets written about other Anglophile countries. How much is known in MRM circles and outside in the MSM about the corruption in the UK, for instance.

I would like to set some facts down about another, Australia, a huge, continental nation with a very modest population where leftist governments have dominated the various States and now are in control Federally. This wonderful land has been infected with the virus of feminist corruption to the detriment of government, law, Institutions and families, men and women.

The rationale for all of the pertinent Law, the hysteria, the draconian legislations is Domestic Violence.

The most horrendous lies are told about DV. And people seem to believe them. They have been persuaded.

Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violencein Australia.

I am indebted to a Senior Australian Public Servant who must remain anonymous, for some crucial parts of this long and detailed blog entry.

Pick up almost any newspaper on any given day and you will most likely find a by-line claiming: “Statistics show …”; “new survey finds …”; or, “new study proves …”. Often accompanied by embellishments such as “shocking”, “appalling”, and so on.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than on the subject of gender relations and in particular the emotionally charged subject of domestic violence, or it’s substitute “family violence”.

It is about neither of course.

It is all about women.

Hysteria is carefully stage-managed.

Only lip service is paid to the idea that males might be victims, and then, we are told, they deserve it anyway.

Let me be clear from the start. I do not like domestic violence, just as I do not like muggings, murders, rapes, armed robberies, cats and dogs lying together etc. But rarely is there any need for muggings to be blown out of proportion by including in their statistics the asking for an ice-cream, even when a tantrum follows a ‘no’.

The panic and hysteria generated by falsified and invented Domestic Violence statistics does far more damage to society and to men and women’s relations, than the very small amount of Domestic violence that exists and which is blown completely out of proportion.

Australia does not collect unified data on Domestic Violence. Not directly. Figures get lifted out of context from a variety of ‘official’ documents.

Where do you think they come from?

The most widely cited statistics on the subject in Australia is the Women’s Safety Survey, published in 1996 , that repeats American claims, “One in four women experience domestic violence, within their lifetime”.

There was no Men’s Safety Survey.

The bias was there even before the survey was designed.

It was another ten years, 2006, before a further more inclusive Safety survey was conducted.

This article looks at this biased, anti-male 1996 Survey and other sources which have driven Public Policy in Australia.

I will also show the 2006 survey in some depth and reveal the government’s response.

One in Four Women Abused.

This American claim of ‘One in Four’ ubiquitously applied to most female claims of outrage, first surfaced in the left-wing Feminist Ms Magazine in the 1970’s after a deliberately doctored survey about rape using a self-selected sample of its anti-male readers.

One in Four is a ‘super-term’. It is akin to an hypnotic chant that robs people of control over their thoughts. It is applied to almost anything to do with women.

Being given a glass of wine before sex constituted rape according to that travesty of a survey, commissioned by Ms and conducted by a misandric feminazi ‘Professor’, Mary Koss.

A considerable broadening of what constitutes domestic violence and sexual assault was demanded by feminists in America to access the gravy train of the Violence Against Women Act, (VAWA) and the left-wing President Clinton, the well known sexual assaulter of young women employees, complied.

Clinton sought to make reparation to his feminist harridan of a wife for his own sexual incontinence by punishing every man in America.

He was assisted in this by the then Senator Joe Biden, now the Vice President, an aptly named position for such a twisted mind – who explained how he used to be beaten-up by his sister when he was young, and was making his own Kow-Tow to her continued ‘advice’. Which no doubt was ‘Do it MY way, or ELSE’.

Biden was an architect of VAWA. He cared not for violence against men and may well be a masochist by nature.

VAWA opened the door to a widespread and mendacious catalogue of innocuous behaviours being classified as ‘assault’ and DV in a flood of Advocacy Research.

People in other western countries will recognise the same dirty fingers in the pie-charts of their own bogus and mendacious advocacy research underpinning their own Government Policies.

The “Women’s Safety Survey” (WSS) findings, which uses this sleight of hand, underpins Australian Government policy and legislation in every Australian state jurisdiction – with the exception of Victoria, which now evidently claims that “one in five women are victims of domestic violence”.

This apparently suggests that women would be much safer if they all moved to Victoria. Maybe it is something in the Victorian air.

No “study” is of much value until it has been subjected to peer review. This hasn’t occurred in relation to the Women’s Safety Survey. For a number of reasons, there is an urgent need for independent and thorough research and review.

The WSS study was released under the imprimatur of the Australian Bureau of Statistics but was in fact a creature of the bureaucratically powerful Office of Status of Women which commissioned and directed the survey.

There was significant consternation reported at that time in relation to complaints, by ABS officers – that they were being “bullied” into undertaking unprofessional, and methodologically flawed “advocacy research” – research which is designed to prove the existence of something, whether it exists or not.

Several Executive level officers of the ABS were later ‘re-located’ to ‘re-education’ roles

The notion that one in four women are suffering from domestic violence is alarming and conjures images, at the very least, of black eyes and bruises occurring on an appalling scale.

But it is a lie.

How many Australian’s would know that the survey included such largely irrelevant questions as “Have you ever received an obscene phone call?” .

A phone rings and no one is there. Bogus fear is conveniently generated from a neurotic mind.

Tick the box.

Another sexual assault.

Yeh. Pig’s arse !

It beggars belief that questions like this formed the bulk of the survey.

It has barley any relevance to domestic violence at all.

But…. It’s another male-damning statistic.

But the Office for the Status of Women did not stop there. The determined harridans were intent on spin to beat all spin.

How many would know that the survey report blurred the fact that some 27 per cent of respondents were actually reporting violence caused by other women?

Heck, that’s just over One in Four !

It must have been men that made them do it.

Believe me, you can be convinced.

In fact, you have been.

There were many other seriously disturbing aspects to this survey. For example, it also involved only voluntary participation, which is a key source of survey bias – just as in the Ms magazine survey – as it attracts participants who may have a vested interest the subject matter, a factor that can dramatically skew the results.

In the desired direction, of course.

And, it was a “life incidence” survey, thus inviting the recitation of some event far off in both time and in memory.

The failings of human memory with the passage of time is well recognised by our legal system, which, with very few exceptions, refuses to admit evidence that has been muddied by time and with no corroboration.

Forty years and a bitter divorce can change a memory from someone merely “pushing away” into “he threw me down the stairs”.

Who is there to contradict?

No evidence was even sought.

The law recognises the frailty of old memories but our ever -increasing victim culture does not.

Society would not entertain the concept that someone is currently considered to be a “road accident victim” based on a minor bruise they had incurred in a vehicle accident 20 years ago.

Nor would we necessarily put much faith in a 20-year-old version of how the accident occurred.

Yet this is precisely what such surveys on domestic violence increasingly attempt to encourage for society to accept as reality, current and relevant for domestic violence and assault.

When citing the “one in four” statistic, some domestic violence literature conveniently leaves out the phrase “within their lifetime”, giving a false impression of immediacy; that one in four women are victims, right now, on this very day.

Think about that.

Every shout-at, telling-off, even smack on the legs when we were five years old being counted so that everyone has been the ‘victim’ of abuse.

Moreover, the Women’s Safety Survey did not overtly and clearly say that one in four women were victims of “physical” domestic violence, but included a range of other non-physical and both potentially and actually non-violent behaviours that were then re-classified as “domestic violence”.

It covertly implies it is all physical violence.

A man not handing over his pay-packet to his wife is ‘economic DV’.

No mention that it demanding his wages is extortion.

Him answering that ‘Yes’ her bum does look fat in those jeans, is ‘verbal DV’.

It ‘demeans” and is therefore ‘violent’.

An argument between a couple with both shouting is HIM being violent.

She is simply defending herself by ‘communicating’.

Advocacy research has taken over much of what passes for academic and ‘official’ date collection.

It sets out to provide ‘proof’ for a conclusion already held. It supports a Prejudice.

Why do you think that anyone would want to go to the time and effort to do that?

Show me the Money.

Domestic violence literature, when citing such advocacy research survey findings characterise the one in four statistic as referring to physical violence.

The leaflets handed out by the self-declared socially-conscious commercial retail chain, “The Body Shop”, being a case in point.

It manipulates. It attracts. It drew wannabee socially conscious women customers in to buy fragrant soaps and candles, to ‘support victims of domestic violence’.

Domestic Violence lies sells women’s products.

“After you have been beaten by an unappreciative man, you poor victimized woman, you need to pamper yourself. You deserve it.”

“Oooh, let me have some of those candles, you poor thing, I am a victim, too. Honest.”

“Is that right. Could you take a minute to fill out this survey while I wrap these for you”.

Such ‘women’s goods’ shop chains have no shame in ripping off women by appealing to ‘support for victims’.

Even refugees from Torture and Trauma are roped in. The Refugee resettlement organisations in Australia get Government funds which are then siphoned off to run ‘joint’ appeals with such women’s goodies retail outlets for ‘raising consciousness’. And getting women to fill in surveys.

They only mention women refugees of course. The maimed men do not get to take part. It makes for a fine week’s boost to turnover and the private company ‘bottom line’.

It gets women’s votes too.

Domestic violence literature across the board not only blurs the past with the present but blends quite different and sometimes relatively innocuous behaviours with the abjectly violent, in order to incite a widespread impression that physical domestic violence against women is currently running rampant and unchecked in our community.

The survey gives an Australian flavour to the increasingly Internationalised American charade of a law, the Violence Against Women Act, brought in by the American Cultural-Marxist group, the National Organisation of Women, and pushed through by the efforts of the current American Vice President, Joe Biden.

Such a gender biased law has gobbled up Billions of dollars of American taxpayers money funneled to women’s groups; with nothing at all to male ‘victims’.

Australia is behind with the Dollars but then it is a much smaller tax-base. It is just Hundreds of Millions. With the Global Economic Crisis upon us, it will catch up with some Stimulus Packages for the girls, be sure. Kevin Rudd’s ‘working families’ have had their day and the non-working, single-mother families are on the increase.

No prizes for guessing why.

Right now in 2009 our Great leader, Chairman Mousey Kev is announcing a massive increase in Grants to women. More to the Violence against Women mantra. Our Equality Chairwoman (!) was doing the Press round appearing on TV in July 2009 to rally the media at the weekly Press Club broadcast.

Here we are in the middle of the worst recession, supposedly, since the demise of the Mickey Mouse Club and the girls want what is left of the money.

The Office for the Status of Women is a vast black hole into which taxpayer’s money is poured. It exists soley to benefit Government and the powerful female bureaucrats that run the show, none of which has ever seen a glass ceiling.

The Office channels Policy like Shirley MacLain channels 5000 year old Egyptian Gurus.

A beneficiary has been the Health Departments both Federal and State that have had billions of dollars funneled into ‘Women’s Health’ while dregs are given to men.

But I digress.

The mendacious nature of the now ubiquitous term domestic violence, which brings under its one heading a range of non-physical behaviours is of primary concern. The nuances of context and intensity are increasingly lost in a determined re-interpretation of any kind of marital disagreement, into a paradigm of male “perpetrator” and a female “victim”.

It breaks traditional families apart.

We see a lot of street behaviour that we might regard as offensive or verbally aggressive but in the absence of a physical assault (whether major or minor) we don’t classify it as violence per se.

It drives a biased, anti-male Un-Australian Industry that expropriates Public Monies and supports commercial interests.

It drives prejudiced and bigoted Government Policy.

The survey does not like to stand out like a sore thumb as the only data. Let’s look at the other common sources of dodgy data misrepresented by our feminist-driven Government, to convince the Australian public that we have an epidemic of Family Violence which is attributed solely to evil Australian men.

Lies build upon lies.

More lies convince better than just one.

Let us take a look at intervention orders issued by the lower courts as a source of bogus “statistical evidence” of the “magnitude” of domestic or ‘family’ violence.

Let us also will look at Police records of DV ‘Incidents’ and how they are not at all what they seem. Or what the general public is told.

Let us look at the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program which is also misrepresented to the detriment of men and the advantage of the DV Industry.

Wrong and often bogus statistics are deployed, with an apparent intention to deliberately mislead.

Add Wing of Bat and Eye of Lizard to the Pot

Having looked at the uncorroborated, biased and manipulated Women’s Safety Survey let us look now at Intervention Orders and how they are manipulated too.

Most “finalised” intervention orders are finalised simply because they are uncontested. That is, the male “respondent” is persuaded (often bullied) by court officials, such as Deputy Court Registrars, into signing up for a “final” or “permanent” order rather than contest the allegations in court.

The lower courts don’t want any more congestion if it can be avoided.

Men are manipulated. The Bat’s-wing.

Convincing a bewildered “respondent” to sign up for the permanent order on the basis of a “By Consent, Without Admissions“, is not particularly difficult, especially if a solicitor has already advised him that it could cost up to $10,000 if he goes to court.

And further, that he will most likely lose.

The Burden of Proof is laid on the defendant, not the accuser. Proving a negative is plain impossible.

The legal test is not “beyond reasonable doubt” but merely the “balance of probabilities”. This is a very weak civil law test in the context of penalties that could ultimately imprison a respondent, and certainly dispossess him of his assets.

This happens in Tasmania where the ironically misnamed ‘Safe at Home Act’ ensures that male arrest is automatic with no bail on simple female accusation.

He loses access to his home and children and even loses his job because he cannot prove he didn’t do what he didn’t do. Magistrates are badgered by the Safe at Home Act and are increasingly fearful of bad publicity if a violent act should possibly subsequently occur.

As it is quite possible. The catalyst for possible subsequent violence, ironically, is often the faked restraining order allegations in the first place and the trauma of being hauled into court often for the first time in his life. The magistrates are as aware as anyone of the adage, “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’.

In this instance is ‘hang him just in case he has his eye on a lamb’.

When you are convicted of something you didn’t do, on a false allegation you cannot disprove, you may well want to earn your punishment.

So much for “justice” and the fading jurisprudential notion of the “presumption of innocence”.

Whether a female complainant was ever genuinely fearful or merely a perjurer and liar is more often than not un-explored. And if it is questioned at all, with due compassion and concern for the ‘victim’, the diluted “balance of probabilities” test still renders such findings questionable.

Domestic violence literature increasingly proclaims that domestic violence is a crime. Quite so. Therefore, in any legal action, the criminal law test of “beyond reasonable doubt” should be applied.

It never is.

Given the growing understanding that intervention orders are regularly used as a tactical weapon in achieving favourable custody and property outcomes in subsequent Family Court proceedings, a count of intervention orders as a measure of “violence against women” is virtually meaningless.

Yet such statistics are used for precisely that.

I sat in the Hobart, Tasmania, Family Court and listened as a ‘fearful’ 27 y/o ex-wife of four years marriage accused her poor sod of a ex-husband of 62 from whom she had taken three quarters of his lifetime’s assets, of murdering her previous boyfriend – who in fact had been deported as an illegal immigrant – and of being an International Terrorist. He had been in the Israeli army on National Service 30 years before.

The Judge said she was being ‘fanciful’. No charges of perjury were laid and no investigations ordered for such heinous crimes, And she was awarded the children. Of course. ‘Just in case’.

Over the course of the following three years that man was arrested seven times and spent four nights in jail. He was hospitalized twice. He was arrested on one occasion after she accused him of assault. He had leaned on her car.

Another domestic violence statistic.

Always added, never subtracted when disproven. No one tries to seek truth. It was disregarded at his Court case that he has been run over by a horse and buggy and has a damaged back. He leaned because he was in pain.

Tough.

Which brings us onto the Eye of Lizard.

Another statistic commonly cited by an increasingly frenzied domestic violence Industry is the number of POLICE CALL-OUTS to domestic or family violence ‘Incidents’.

Whether the “incident” involved verbal disagreement between husband and wife or an act of actual violence, we would never know. It is merely noted as an “incident”.

In fact, if the protagonists were two 14 year old brothers arguing on the front lawn that too, would be noted on the official records as a domestic or family violence incident.

These records of “incidents” are then inevitably fed into the ever-swelling “conduit” of statistics that ultimately produces headlines that purport, “alarming new data shows domestic violence against women running out of control”.

The police in any region know who the violent families are. They attend the same people time and time again. The vast majority of citizens are not violent and do not have ‘domestic violence’ in their homes and families.

But when one family chalks up 25 ‘Incidents’ in three months, and 200 families account for 2000 Incidents, it is made to appear that ten times as many men are guilty than are.

The women never are guilty of course. They are made out to be 2000 victims.

The end result is then ever-increasing public funding to combat the ever burgeoning horror of violence against women. Nobody ever delves deep enough to examine how many of these police reported “incidents” actually involved a physical violence or threat of violence or indeed whether a woman was even present at the time.

Leg of Cane-Toad too.

Few if any newspapers or TV ‘expose’ shows ever investigate the amount of public funding to any organisation that puts itself under the “domestic violence umbrella” or else you will instantly understand why this has become a publicly funded “industry” of vast size.

The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) is yet another supportive source of statistics on so-called “family violence”.

The SAAP gives priority to ‘battered women’.

Love that phrase.

What the SAAP data does not show however, is how many women were encouraged to falsely claim that they were fleeing family violence, or indeed what the nature of the “violence” was, so that they could receive the priority treatment gravy train.

A recent Canberra Times article, lamenting the lack of affordable low cost public housing for poor families, featured a couple with young children who were forced to live in a caravan. A “housing worker” was quoted as suggesting to the mother, “If there was family violence, you could get a house straight away”: i.e. claim you are a female victim and the “world is your oyster”.

Male victims need not apply.

He would not be allowed in her ‘priority’ house.

Using SAAP data as a measure of violence against women is badly flawed because it can be and is misconstrued – again with an apparent deliberate intent – to reflect a statistic illustrating the number of women and children fleeing family violence.

In fact, at this point you might care to watch a short video on just where so much ‘family violence’ actually originates –

Kuwaiti authorities have apprehended the person suspected of setting fire to a wedding tent and killing 41 people and said Monday the motive was personal. Local newspapers reported the groom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.

Whoops, sorry. Not an Australian statistic there. Unless she seeks refugee status and pops into the Body Shop for some scented candles. Back to Aussie homeless.

SAAP data, in fact, often reflects the large number of homeless men who being so frequently dispossessed by individual chicanery, destructive, psychotic women and Family Court excoriation, are seeking emergency accommodation. They do not get priority of course.

By both omission and commission, Australia is being sold a very gross and socially dangerous statistical lie – one that is serving only the interests of its creators, and those legions who have so readily signed up to the fictional notion that every fourth female face we see each day is secretly living in stark terror and fear of “family violence”.

So, What is the Truth.

Some women unfortunately are victims of ‘family violence’, let’s admit as evidence and acknowledge the fact.

1.2% are according to a rare example of independentUniversity research by Bruce Headly and Dorothy Scott of Melbourne University and David De Vaus of La Trobe.

But that was a non-self-selected, random sample.

1.2%. This tiny percentage, well below the oft cited 25%, needed first aid, so bad was the violence they had experienced at the hands of a domestic partner.

And so did some men.

The same research shows 1.8% for men needing first aid.

A full 50% higher.

Even smaller percentages of both needed a doctor’s attention. But again more men than women. 1.5% men vs 1.1% women.

Moreover, the Headly, Scott and De Vaus summary measure of experiencing a range of forms of assault fails to reveal any preponderance of assaults on women:

4.7% of the sample reported being assaulted ‘in some way’ during the last 12 months; 5.7% of men and 3.7% of women. Not needing any attention to damage though.

They had had a shouting match and called each other naughty names.

Again, that is over half as many men more than women. And so far below the mythical 25%, the 1:4, terribly, awfully suffering women, as to make a total rejection of feminist lies.

What must be untangled – so that effective measures can be put into place – is the real incidence of such violence from the bogus statistical misrepresentations that are serving an entirely different agenda.

The critical issue about DV is all too often overlooked completely; it’s low experience in the community.

· 94.4% of people reported in Headly et al, being neither perpetrators nor victims of violence.

· 2.5% report both assaulting and being assaulted.

· 2.1% report being assaulted but not committing assault.

· 1.0% report assaulting their partner but not being assaulted.

No signs at all of 1:4 or 25% anywhere.

This Independent research showed clearly that DV affects a miniscule proportion of the population, and on every measure but one men suffered greater domestic violence from women than women did from men and in greater percentage numbers.

The one measure?

She calls the police far more often.

The mantle of mass victimhood casts a long and very dark shadow that too often conceals the very location of the destruction of truth and where propaganda is given the oxygen for its blowtorch.

The Federal Government spent $73 million on television adverts showing only male perpetrators and only female victims.

Sheer AgitProp.

THAT is domestic violence.

You paid for it with expropriated taxes.

The advertising camapign was labeled “propaganda against men” with many men criticising its negative and blatantly false “stereotypical portrayals”.

One notable Australian commentator described it as ‘the worst piece of deliberate Government black propaganda against a biologically distinguishable group ever seen outside of Nazi Germany”.

Almost all political tyrannies have their origin in segregating societies into the conceptual equivalent of “good and evil”, “angels and demons”, “victims and perpetrators”. “Four legs good, two legs bad”. There is never a middle ground

“Male equals perpetrator”, “female equals victim”.

When liars are afoot in society, in power, their first weapon of choice is statistical “proof” to provide convincing lies.

One has to wonder why intelligent, moral men and women in Australia put up with this. Men are demonized but say little to protect their Reputations and their legitimate interests.

Women’s legitimate interests have been hi-jacked by a clique of destructive, Marxist-Feminist women who spread blatant lies on their behalf, expropriate public monies and claim a bogus high moral ground.

It would be generous to think that this manipulation and bias was just the result of incompetence. But as we can see there is something far darker behind it. It is corruption. It is deliberate.

It is statistical corruption; fiscal corruption; political corruption.

As a result of that bogus 1996 survey, and with the ongoing manipulation and misrepresentation of the three other ‘Official’ statistics discussed above, women fear walking in the street, especially at night. Every husband is regarded as a potential wife-beater. Funds flow to women’s groups.

Domestic Violence advocacy was the fastest growing Industry of the decade following, employing thousands in ‘jobs for the girls, paid from taxpayer expropriations

The Truth is out there – somewhere.

I mentioned before that an Official but Independent and reliable survey needs to be done to establish valid figures for Policy determination.

Following the row between the Women’s Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over Feminist manipulation and bullying, the ABS conducted it’s own survey.

It took ten years to get around to it, mind you.

The results were very different to the bogus ones of the Office for the Status of Women, despite their continued attempts to interfere and manipulate.

The Australian Government has ignored the more relevant ABS findings under pressure from those same feminists who continue to exercise undemocratic control.

The ABS to manage to do a more reliable examination in 2006 which tried to show the truth. At least it didn’t leave out an entire gender this time.

Once again, however, the Feminists managed to interfere and manipulate, and I will show you how. I also show how you can delve into the data collected to bring the Truth into the light of day.

And along with its appearance, the statistical myths and fabrications of feminist’s victimhood, and women’s class oppression , and claims of an epidemic of violence against women – were able to be immediately exposed and contradicted

But the silence was deafening.

Have you heard of the Personal Safety Survey or its findings?

No?

What a surprise. !

Have you heard of 1 in 4 women are victims of domestic violence?

Of course you have.

The silence didn’t last of course as it was soon replaced with a $73 million Government advertising campaign based on the oldfalse results appearing on TV sets nation-wide.

It was like sticking fingers in women’s ears and having them chant “lalalalalala;Men, bad; Women, victims”.

The survey reveals a picture of what any rational person should have assumed about life simply by observation of the world around them and their day to day existence in it.

The survey reveals what most people should have known or should have suspected about the facts of social violence –

it is men rather than women who have the most to fear regarding their personal safety.

It further reveals that the perpetrators of violence, in all their ugly forms and diversity, are not just men, and that the domain of perpetrators includes a significant percentage of women.

There are few surprises in this survey other than it seems to have been conducted with appropriate propriety and adherence to statistical principles.

Almost.

A refreshing breath of almost-fresh air given the lies and spin of so many preceding studies and surveys conducted on this subject.

But before delving into some its facts and figures, there are a couple of points that should be clarified about the survey itself.

As surveys go, it seems to have been done fairly responsibly but with some clear prior interference. It encompassed a sizeable sample of the population – 16,300 adults in total, about 0.1% of the Australian adult population – so its findings could be seen to be a reasonable reflection of what’s really going on in Australia today.

That’s 2 and a ½ times the sample size of the feminist’s survey.

However, for some reason you will instantly recognise, nearly three times as many women were surveyed than men – 11,800 women compared to only 4,500 men.

What a surprise !

The feminists just cannot help themselves, can they?

Ask yourselves; there are 50% women and 50% men in our society. There are usually one man and one woman in a domestic couple.

OK. There are sometimes two men together, and two women together, but rare.

So why a sample that is 75% women and 25% men?

It is better than 100% women and 0% men, as in the 1996 survey, but still only a little better. Half a loaf.

Men’s experiences of personal safety are not deemed as valid as those of women. Did they expect that women’s experiences of violence would be more valid, diverse or significant?

Or was it simply a matter of funding as is implied in the survey’s notes?

Funding controlled by feminists in the bureaucracy?

You get the Report; read it carefully and make your own mind up. Read the notes.

Whatever the reason for it, and there is no fair or justifiable stance that could possibly be taken for this glaring discrepancy, the question remains, why were men relegated to being less than second class respondents?

No one has provided an answer.

You can go figure it for yourself, but perhaps we can hope this imbalance will be addressed in any further surveys where the sex of the respondents is relevant.

For now though, when digesting the results, it must be understood that sample distribution bias still exists .

In fact, in some cases, reflected in the ABS tables, annotations have been made by the statisticians indicating that the data may be of questionable reliability.

Why would that be?

Why would the ABS warn about its own data?

I will tell you in a moment.

Given the importance and far reaching social implications of this survey, this restriction of men’s experiences is a travesty of their rights as taxpayers and citizens of the nation.

Especially as it turns out from the survey results that men are the most severely affected members of society where personal safety and violence are concerned.

This treatment of men is a clear statement by the Government that they see Australian men as being second class and less important than the women of the nation.

Yet, in the Liberal’s defense, – they had achieved Government by then – it must be argued that they are the first and so far only government in Australia to include men in such a survey at all.

Previous Labor governments, which had presided over the totally bogus Women’s Safety Survey, simply didn’t care about the safety of men and only ever conducted safety surveys for women.

This development in itself is at least some consolation for Australian men and was a positive step forward.

Now, the reason for the annotated questioning of the reliability of the data, especially about the men.

You see, the other glaring concern about the production of this ABS survey was the sexist exclusion of men as interviewers.

100% of the interviews were conducted by women.

Only women were employed as interviewers.

No men.

By order of the Feminist bureaucracy.

It is important to realise that by using ONLY female interviewers, it is likely to have led to an underreporting of spousal and partner violence against men by females and an over-reporting of men’s violence against women.

In a national survey of this significance, one could have at least expected squeaky-clean adherence to equal-sex political correctness.

Hah!

Pig’s Arse !

Despite these sexist anomalies the survey reveals for the first time, much important information about personal safety, and the victims and perpetrators of personal violence.

It is a subject, which has long been obscured by the murky fog of feminist advocacy. Prejudice and proving prior expectations have ruled such research.

But against the odds, this survey has revealed and has exposed the feminist lies.

The following statements, derived directly from the ABS survey, are just the initial findings and a fuller investigation by YOU, yourself, of the finer detail is encouraged.

Do not simply take my word.

I will compare the freshly published data to the often-quoted rhetorical statistics of feminist propaganda – and remember this, these are official Australian government research figures and not some trumped up, biased, ideologically prejudiced University Women’s Studies data or those of some politically or gender- biased NGO.

Those rhetorical stats use the 1:4 comparison device, or the ‘per second’ and per day and per week device to hide the real numbers which would look as small as they actually are.

It sounds so much better to say that two women a week are killed by husbands – as the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK is fond of spouting – than to say that 102 women out of a population of 30 million are killed annually by nutters.

Two per week generates more hysteria than 0.00034%

And of course the feminists never tell you that 94 UK men per annum, nearly but not quite two men per week are killed by female spouses.

Facts – the ABS survey has revealed that –

In Australia, men are more than twice as likely as women to be the victims of violence and are being physically or sexually assaulted or threatened, at the rate of up to 2 incidents per second

Women are not the victims of family (domestic) violence anywhere near as often as the quoted 25%, 1 in 4, – nor even 1 in 10, – nor even 1 in 20, but actually 1 in 50

That is to say, 2%

2%

Women are not being raped and sexually assaulted every 26 seconds, as claimed by the Feminists of the Office for the Status of Women, nor even every 90 seconds, as other feminists frequently claim, but are in fact experiencing rape hardly at all.

And even when combined with the lesser sexual assaults, it is at a rate 91%less than that which feminists have previously claimed.

Look at that another way. Feminist claims are exaggerated by at least 10 times.

And this includes both reported and all unreported incidents ‘discovered’ by the survey interviewers.

The ratio of female vs male family (domestic) violence victims in a home is not99:1, with men very rarely assaulted and women bashed daily, nor 95:5, nor 75:1, nor even 50:1, but is actually …… 2:1

And some of the women are being assaulted in the ‘domestic’ sphere by other women.

These statements above are all calculated from the ABS survey data without corruption. Look at the figures.

Of course there will be some deviation from the survey compared to real life figures, just as in all studies – always read the fine print of surveys – but, remember, nearly three women were interviewed for every one man.

The data for men may have been tainted by the use of only female interviewers, some of whom may even have been staunch feminists, – show me a woman who claims she isn’t and I will show you a lonely one – and together with the sample number bias, resulting in underreporting of men’s experience of family violence as victims.

Let us look closely at some other interesting statistics –

During the previous 12 months in Australia, that is, in 2005,

6.5% of males were physically assaulted.

And 3.1% of females

That is 1 in 15 men compared to 1 in 32 women.

Conclusion: Women are safer.

Attempted or threatened physical assaults were against 5.3% of males and just 2.1% of females.

Conclusion: Women are 2.5 times safer from threats and attempts than men are.

Women can expect greater safety than men can.

There isn’’t a bogeyman down every dark street looking for a woman to assault.

The bogeyman is too busy assaulting men.

In the sexual assault area beloved of feminists and the source of fright, alarm and horror – and endless expropriated taxes for agitprop – the survey indeed finds the figures swing to women being more likely to be sexually assaulted than men are.

But the figures are lower still.

Not 1 in 4 women.

Not 25%, as reported in the bogus Women’s Safety Survey.

It is just 1.6%

1 – point – 6 – per cent reported being sexually assaulted.

Did you hear that? 1.6 %

That’s 1 in 62. Not 1 in 4.

And MEN are sexually assaulted too. 0.6 %.

Threats and attempts at sexual assault are even lower.

0.5% for women and 0.1% for men.

98% of women are perfectly safe and not even under threat of sexual assault.

Sexual assault on women, and even on men, is very low.

Not that such a F.A.C.T. fact makes headlines in the newspapers.

It doesn’t sell.

It doesn’t sell ‘stuff’ like scented candles and soap in the Body Shop.

Why are women being deliberately frightened by the Government?

YOU have to ask your MP.

Deliberately Frightening Women: Neglecting Men.

In conclusion, what does all this mean?

It means that Australia as a nation is the first in the Western world to undertake a survey of adult personal safety and violence based on the sex of the community.

It has both massive and broad implications for social scrutiny and the politics of sex and violence. It stands as a precedent for further world development and application.

It also has immediate application to other Western societies. Australia, being a contemporary Western nation has been subjected, more or less, to the same political influences over the last half century that have been experienced by the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand and arguably most other European nations.

The data recorded would be directly applicable to other Western societies, more or less and may be quoted as a being from a highly reputable source.

The results of this survey should be seen as the first authoritative sample of non-advocacy research on the issues of Western social violence and in particular, inter-gender personal violence.

The results are both revealing and deeply informative.

Revealing about the incorrectness of previously published feminist advocacy research – and subsequent government information too – and informative about the dire state of violence perpetrated against men in modern civilised Western societies.

The data also provide the basis for a requirement for Western governments to become focused on the safety standards of its men as a top priority and to begin to recognise that there are serious deficiencies in its treatment of men in society.

The survey also amplifies the ludicrous state of Western government’s pursuit of highly expensive anti-violence campaigns and legislation for the least affected victims of personal violence – women – whilst a much more serious problem of violence exists and is being waged against its men.

It also establishes facts that require governments and anti-male NGOs in Australia to immediately rewrite their literature and websites which state false and misleading statistics about personal violence, and in particular, men as overwhelmingly family violence perpetrators. They are not.

The data shows clearly that in the home, in the family, 98.5% of men are safe, law abiding, indeed loving, protective and caring husbands and fathers.

It should also lead to an immediate nation-wide reassessment of family relationship management and Family Law values.

But don’t hold your breath.

It’s no wonder that feminists, the government and the mainstream media in Australia have been so quiet about the release of this new survey.

It exposes a huge raft of feminist baloney, lies and deceptions.

The silence also shows that the Government is deliberately frightening women.

The Government wants women to be frightened of men.

And the media is in the Government’s pocket.

Yes, the truth is out – and out there – somewhere.

But have YOU seen it? Have YOU heard it?

You have now.

This is amfortas.

Ask, Who does the Grail Serve.

This is a written adaptation of three podcasts that I made recently with my colleague, Christian J. Perhaps you might listen to them and send them to others.

The ‘women’s Safety Survey’ was “uncorroborated, biased and manipulated” ‘Advocacy research’ orchestrated by the Office for the Status of Women and passed off as Bureau of Statistics report. It caused an enormous row, says MRA Amfortas. Manipulated definitions and hysterical claims copied from America made innocuous behaviour criminal. DV sells commercial products to women and expropriates public funds for the fastest growing ‘Industry in Australia.

Three other sources of ‘official’ data which are routinely manipulated and presented to support DV lies are analysed by Amfortas and compared to Independent University research which completely contradicts the ‘official message’.” It would be generous to think that this manipulation and bias was just the result of incompetence. But as we can see there is something far darker behind it. It is corruption. It is deliberate.”

Deliberately Lying about DV in Australia. Pt.3. The Truth is out there – Somewhere.

Christian J narrates how the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey completely contradicted the Government’s 1996 survey. He also points to the attempts by feminist bureaucrats to manipulate by having ONLY female interviewers to bias the results. Results show women twice as safe as men. The Government has thrown a blanket of silence over it. Feminists maintain an undemocratic stranglehold, expropriating public monies for their anti-male ‘Industry’.

“When Momma ain’t Happy, Nobody’s Happy”. Amfortas and Paul Elam show how domestic violence and a lot worse are often caused by ‘controlling’ women who are willing to destroy their families to have their own way. Dr Eric Berne’s ‘Games’ are described including the major cause of broken families, the “Let’s you and Him Fight” strategy which uses the Police and Family Courts.

In another case, failed separation between mother and daughter, age 4 at the time of the marital break up, was shown to contribute to an escalating pattern of the girl rejecting her father. The onset of PAS in a given family was found to occur before the parents separated, during the actual divorce proceedings, or years after the divorce decree. Dunne and Hedrick describe a two-and-a-half year-old girl whose parents were disputing custody where there had been a long series of allegations by the mother since the early months of her pregnancy. Some of the teens in this sample had enjoyed a lengthy and positive post-divorce relationship with a parent prior to rejecting that parent as part of a PAS scenario.

Lund

Psychologist Mary Lund examined factors in addition to parental programming which can contribute to estrangement between the child and a rejected parent (19). She wrote that the methods Gardner advocates, such as court orders for continued contact, fit many cases and may help prevent the child developing the kind of phobic-like reaction to the rejected parent which can occur when contact is discontinued during long, drawn out legal proceedings. Such legal interventions often form the cornerstone for treatment. In treating these families, Lund integrates Gardner’s work with that of Janet Johnston. She assesses the family in terms of developmental factors in the child which may be contributing, such as normal separation problems among preschoolers and oppositional behavior during preadolescence and adolescence. Deficits in the noncustodial parent’s parenting may also contribute to the problem. In her experience, the hated parent, usually the father, often has a distant, rigid, even authoritarian style which contrasts with the indulgent, clinging style of the loved parent, who may also need help with appropriate parenting. These are risky generalizations, however. In the experience of this author and others, alienating and target parents exhibit a wide variety of personality patterns which do not lend themselves to this type of generalization. In addition, where the father is the alienating parent, it is sometimes he who uses an overindulgent and materially lavish parenting style to overwhelm and override the children’s healthier psychological bond with the mother.

According to Lund, PAS may also develop when the stress for the child of ongoing high conflict divorce becomes too much and the child seeks to “escape” being caught in the middle by aligning with one parent. Therapists, especially individual child therapists, can unwittingly become part of the system maintaining the PAS, such that a court order is required to break up the therapist’s polarizing influence. Ultimately, a combination of strategic legal and therapeutic interventions are required to mitigate the PAS and keep the case manageable.

Cartwright

A Canadian psychologist, Cartwright makes eight points about PAS:

1) PAS can be provoked by conflicts other than custody matters, e.g., child support and relatively trivial differences;

2) alienation is a gradual and consistent process that is directly related to the time spent alienating;

3) time is on the side of the alienating parent, who may engage in a host of delay tactics;

4) slow judgments by courts exacerbate the problem;

5) alienating parents sometimes use the hint of sexual abuse to discredit the other parent, what Cartwright calls “virtual” allegations of sexual abuse;

6) judgments by the court which are clear and forceful are required to counter the force of alienation;

7) children subject to excessive alienation may develop mental illness and

8) successful parental alienation has profound, long term consequences for the child and other family members which are only beginning to be appreciated (24).

As an example of “virtual” allegations abuse, Cartwright describes a mother who insinuated sexual abuse by the father by alleging that he had shown the child a pornographic videotape which in fact was just a Hollywood comedy rented from a family video store. Regarding risk to the child of developing mental illness, Cartwright gives the example of disintegrating behavior by an alienated son, presumably latency age, who tried to poison his father by slipping air freshener into his stomach medicine. Later, the boy ran away during a visit with the father and the police had to be called. The folie a deux literature includes a report in 1977 of a 10-year-old boy who allegedly attempted to burn down his father’s house two years after his parents divorced, apparently as a result of his folie a deux relationship with his disturbed mother (25). Such cases suggest that severe PAS can be indicative of significant emotional disturbance in the alienating parent with a proportionately disturbing effect on the child.

Cartwright poignantly describes the psychological effects on the child of being involved in severe PAS. “The child…experiences a great loss, the magnitude of which is akin to death of a parent, two grandparents, and all the lost parent’s relatives and friends…Moreover…the child is unable to acknowledge the loss, much less mourn it” (24). The child’s good memories of the alienated parent are systematically destroyed and the child misses out on the day-to-day interaction, learning, support and love which, in an intact family, usually flows between the child and both parents, as well as grandparents and other relatives on both sides.

The child may encounter insurmountable obstacles if, later in life, he or she seeks to reestablish relations with the lost parent and his family. The lost parent may beunable or unwilling to become reinvolved. The parent or grandparents may have died. Some of these children eventually turn against the alienating parent, and if the target parent is lost to them as well, the child is left with an unfillable void.

PARENTS WHO INDUCE ALIENATION

Gender

Gardner’s observation that mothers seem to engage in PAS behavior with significantly greater frequency than fathers is born out by divorce research, as well as by the clinical PAS literature. The California Children of Divorce Study found that in a nonclinical sample, mothers were twice as likely as fathers to form PAS type alignments with their children (2). When false allegations of abuse arise, as in more severe manifestations of PAS, mothers also seem to comprise the majority (3, 26–28). Mothers constituted 67 percent of the accusers in the nationwide study which revealed that allegations of abuse in divorce/custody disputes were found to be invalid about 50 percent of the time (12). Fathers were the accusers in 22 percent of cases while third parties such as relatives and professionals were the adult initiators 11 percent of the time. Where a third party was the initiator of the allegation, a parent might also believe there was abuse. The numbers reverse when it comes to physically abducting the child, with fathers the abductors from 60 percent to 70 percent of the time (18). There may be gender differences in how men and women go about gaining control of their children and taking revenge on an ex-spouse, with men more inclined to physical kidnapping and women more inclined to social/psychological abduction, which is how Clawar and Rivlin characterized severe PAS (7).

Never Married

Parents may engage in PAS behavior even if they were never married. In Johnston’s study of children who refuse visitation, she found that from 6 percent to 15 percent of the high conflict parents she studied were not married (9). In the author’s experience, one of the contributing factors to PAS with some of these couples is the mother’s anger and resentment over the father’s refusal to marry her, an effect which is exacerbated if the father becomes involved with a new partner. A mother in this position may have particularly strong proprietary feelings, similar to what Clawar and Rivlin describe (7), infuriated by the unfairness of joint custody laws which grant the father rights to a relationship with his child without his having fulfilled his obligations with respect to the mother.

New Partners

Johnston found that the new partner of either parent could be the primary instigator of efforts to gain custody of the child (8). Something similar happens when a divorcing parent joins a cult which actively strives to get the child from the noncult member parent, with the cult fulfilling the role of new partner in a sense, as shown in one of the case vignettes to follow.

Narcissistic Vulnerability

Johnston found that to varying degrees, one or both of the parents in high conflict divorce may be narcissistically vulnerable, lacking a well-established self identify and relying on primitive defenses such as externalization, denial and projection (8). The need of one or both parents to protect and defend themselves against narcissistic injury is atthe root of many high conflict divorces. This may be a motivating factor for PAS in some cases, a dynamic described by Wilhelm Reich almost 50 years ago (29) when he foretold how parents of certain character types would seek to defend themselves against narcissistic injury in divorce by fighting for the child, using the technique of defaming the partner in order to alienate the child from that parent.

Need to Conceal Parental Deficits

According to Clawar and Rivlin, the campaign to alienate the child from the other parent is sometimes used to deflect unwanted scrutiny of the programming parent’s personal problems, for example alcohol, drugs, neglectful parenting, physical and sexual abuse, criminal involvement, or socially unaccepted life-style (7). Sometimes parents engage in PAS behavior out of fear that they will be found wanting when compared to the more loving and capable target. The literature on false allegations in divorce/custody disputes often makes the point that the accusation helps the accuser level the playing field, so to speak.

Vulnerability to Separation and Loss

A factor in some high conflict divorces is the presence in one or both parents of specific underlying vulnerabilities to loss and conflicts around attachment and separation (8). A PAS scenario can develop when a troubled parent who was rejected in the divorce copes with loss and loneliness by turning to the child to fullfill emotional needs, resulting in what Wallerstein calls the “overburdened child ” , discussed in Part II. For some parents, the divorce reactivates separation issues from earlier losses such as previous divorce, kidnapping or death of a child, or the loss of other family members. Such a parent may engage in PAS to defend against further “loss,” that of having to share the child with the other parent. Some parents have long standing personality problems with separation and individuation. The ongoing conflicts over the child engendered by PAS help ward off feelings of loss and abandonment by maintaining the relationship with the ex-spouse. PAS can also be used by keep the other parent hostilily engaged, as in Medea Syndrome (4, 5) and Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome (6, 30).

Revenge Clawar and Rivlin found that revenge was one of the most common and powerful reasons for parents to engage in alienating behavior (7). The personality makeup of some parents is such that revenge seems like their only viable option in response to feeling wounded by the divorce. The desire for revenge can be further kindled if infidelity is discovered, the alienating parent is left for someone else, or finds themselves immediately replaced by a new love object in the life of the parent who left.

Need for Control and Domination

Some alienating parents are driven by overriding needs for power, influence, domination and control (7). Engaging in PAS may provide the dual gratification of maintaining power, influence and control over the child and vicariously over the ex-spouse whose visitation and relationship with the child is frustrated by the alienating parent’s control maneuvers. Needs for domination and control are sometimes acted out by abducting the child and using it to taunt and torment the frantic target parent. In addition to mothers and fathers, a new partner can be the one with inordinate needs for power, domination and control. For example, a mother may become involved with a new partner who first seduces her away from her relatively weak husband and then acts as a sort of one-on-one cult leader to mother and child, who are both programmed and brainwashed into compliance and submission.

Medea Syndrome

The need for revenge is taken to an extreme in Media Syndrome (4, 5). “Modern Medeas do not want to kill their children, but they do want revenge on their former wives or husbands-and they exact it by destroying the relationship between the other parent and the child…The Medea syndrome has its beginnings in the failing marriage and separation, when parents sometimes lose sight of the fact that their children have separate needs [and] begin to think of the child as being an extension of the self…A child may be used as an agent of revenge against the other parent…or the anger can lead to child stealing” (5). The “embittered- chaotic” parents described earlier by Wallerstein and Kelly may also fall in the revenge category (2). These parents act out their intense anger in a disorganized but chronically disruptive way which bombards the children, rather than protecting them, with the raw bitterness and chaos of the angry parent’s feelings about the ex-spouse and the divorce.

Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome

Turkat would have done better to call this disorder “Malicious Parent Syndrome,” but be that as it may, this disorder describes a special class of alienating parents who engage in a relentless and multifaceted campaign of aggression and deception against the ex-spouse, who is being punished for the divorce (6, 30). Contrary to Turkat, the author has encountered several cases in which the father was the malicious parent, as illustrated in the case vignette at the end of this section. Discussing PAS by name, Turkat classified PAS as a moderate form of visitation interference as compared with Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome. The parent with the latter disorder uses an array of tactics including excessive litigation, alienating the child from the target parent, and involving the child and third parties in malicious actions against the ex-spouse. Lying and deception are routinely used. A malicious parent might arrange to have the ex-spouse investigated for use of illegal drugs at work or file a complaint with authorities against the ex-spouse’s new partner. Malicious parents are often successful in using the law to punish and harass the ex-spouse, sometimes violating the law themselves but often getting away with it. Their efforts to interfere with the target parent’s visitation are persistent and pervasive, including attempts to block the target parent from having regular, uninterrupted visitation with the child and from having telephone contact, as well as trying to block the target parent from participating in the child’s school life and activities.

Mr. C’s suspiciousness and verbal attacks on his wife finally drove her to file for divorce. As on previous occasions, Mr. C. threatened that if she would not reconcile he would win custody of their four-year-old daughter and make sure the mother never saw her again. In the past, Mrs. C. had relented, fearful that Mr. C. would fulfill his threats, but this time she stood firm. Mr. C. filed for sole custody based on false allegations that the mother was unfit. When these allegations were not upheld, the father made up new ones. Within a year of filing, Mrs. C. became engaged to another man. Mr. C. succeeded in breaking up the engagement by accusing the fiance of sexually abusing the child. He had the police arrest the fiance at the mother’s home. When child protective services informed the mother that they would take her daughter away for failure to protect, the mother canceled her engagement, terrified that Mr. C. would make good on his threat to take her daughter away. When police and child protection investigation of the sex abuse allegations resulted in a finding that no abuse occurred, Mrs. C. proceeded with her wedding plans. Father raised allegations of sex abuse against Mrs. C.’s new husband in family court and succeeded at one point in gaining temporary custody. Primary custody was returned to the mother after the court ordered evaluation found the allegations to be without merit and the father to be emotionally disturbed and pressuring the child to report abuse. During his visitation time, the father and a male friend continued to interrogate the girl about abuse by the stepfather and as time went by she felt increasingly pressured to meet their expectations. Away from the father’s influence, however, the girl enjoyed her family with her mother and stepfather. She stated to several different therapists that she had only accused her stepfather of molesting her to please her father and his friend.

In the meantime, Mr. C. and friend continued to make abuse reports against the stepfather, creating significant distress for Mrs. C., her new husband and the child. Eventually, when the girl was 10, the father succeeded in getting the juvenile court to take jurisdiction and give him custody, although medical examination of the child did not support the increasingly serious accusations. Mrs. C. was not allowed to see her daughter. When she tried to contact the therapist who was now seeing the girl for sex abuse by Mrs. C.’s new husband, the therapist was rude and a refused to speak with her. The mother was tortured by reports from a series of child protection workers which indicated that her daughter was acting out in bizarre and often self-destructive ways. At the age of twelve, she was picked up by the police for prostitution and had to be psychiatrically hospitalized. Several professionals who were involved when the mother had custody wondered if Mr. C. was deliberately destroying his daughter so as to get revenge against the mother. Mr. C. was able to retain custody, however, by focusing the attention of authorities on allegations of sex abuse against the stepfather.

Long before Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome was identified by Turkat, a male psychologist, whose ex-wife undoubtedly exhibited the disorder, wrote a book about his ordeal (31). Accusing him of sexually abusing their young daughter, the mother arranged for the police to arrest him at his office in front of his clients and staff. She also arranged for newspaper reporters to be present so that pictures of the shocked psychologist being handcuffed and hauled off to jail were widely broadcast. The father fought back and eventually obtained joint custody after the court found that mother’s extreme efforts to sever the father’s relationship with his child were detrimental and stripped her of sole custody.

Personality Characteristics of Parents Making False Accusations of Sexual Abuse in Disputes

Wakefield and Underwager undertook a systematic review of divorce/custody case files to examine and compare the characteristics of 72 false accusers, 103 falsely accused parents and a control group of 67 parents disputing custody but without allegations of abuse (28). Criteria for determining whether a parent had falsely accused included a finding by the justice system that there had been no abuse. Of the three groups, the falsely accusing parents were much more likely to have been diagnosed by a professional as exhibiting a personality disorder including mixed, unspecified, histrionic, borderline, passive-aggressive or paranoid. Approximately one-fourth of the false accusers did not exhibit significant pathology, while most of the parents who were disputing custody without abuse allegations were assessed as normal. Some of the false accusers were so obsessed with anger toward their estranged spouses that this became a major focus of their lives. They continued to be obsessed with abuse despite negative findings by mental health professionals and the courts, similar to what is found in cases of delusional disorder and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. The relationship of falsely accusing parents with their children was often characterized in the record as extremely controlling and symbiotic. Two were Qiven a formal diagnosis of folie a deux between parent and child. Several exhibited extremely serious dysfunction, such as unpredictable bizarre behavior, belief that they possessed supernatural powers and delusions of grandeur. These authors found more similarities than differences between mothers and fathers who falsely accused, with mothers very much in the majority.

SAID Syndome

Blush and Ross have come up with three psychological profiles for mother false accusers and a typical profile of father accusers (3, 26, 27). Mothers tend to present as “fearful victim,” “justified vindicator,” or to some degree psychotic. The “fearful victim” presentation involves manipulation of social image around a specific theme to which others respond with sympathy and support, such as child abuse or spousal abuse. The “justified vindicators” initially present as intellectually organized with a knowledgeable, even pseudo-scientific sounding agenda, similar to what Clawar and Rivlin report regarding self righteousness as an important motivation of some programming parents. Women in the third group present with a combination of borderline and histrionic features, which interact with the stress of the divorce to impair the mother’s reality testing and significantly interfere with her functioning, sometimes to the point of a psychotic or quasi-psychotic presentation. Similar to Wakefield and Underwager’s findings (28), mothers in all three categories tend to be histrionic in presentation, so emotionally convinced of the “facts” that no amount of input, including from neutral professionals, can dissuade them from their perceptions. According to Blush and Ross, the typical profile for father accusers is one of intellectual rigidity and a high need to be “correct,” possibly male counterparts of the “justified vindicator” presentation among mothers. By history, these men were hypercritical of their wives while the marriage was still intact, quick to suspect them of negligence and to accuse their wives of being unfit mothers. Gardner’s work is referenced in the second and third SAID syndrome articles by these authors (26, 27).

Accuser and Accused Dyads

Important information about a programming parent using false allegations of abuse is to be found in the particular choice of accused. The study reported by Thoennes and Tjaden showed that the battle goes beyond simply mothers against fathers and vice versa (12). Parents were found to accuse not only each other but the other’s new partner, or relatives such as grandparents or the new partner’s teenage son. A parent who accuses the ex-spouse’s new partner may fulfill a number of goals simultaneously, expressing feelings of jealousy, revenge, and trying to keep the child from forming a positive attachment with the new parent figure. Accusations against the target parent’s relatives may provide a combination of revenge, allegations that are difficult for the ex-spouse to defend since they are not directly against him or her, and a means to exclude the relatives from post-divorce involvement in the child’s life. The accuser can set up a devastating conflict for the target parent by accusing his teenage son from a previous marriage or the new partner’s teenage offspring from a previous union. This has the effect of forcing the target parent to “choose” between his child involved in making the allegation and another child whom he loves and is responsible for. This enhances the alienating parent’s ability to convince the child that daddy does not care.

The Delusional Parent

Rogers refers to PAS in her report on five divorce/custody cases in which the falsely accusing parent, all mothers in this sample, suffered from delusional disorder (32). The children were subjected to undue influence to get them to accept the accusing parent’s psychotic belief and concomitant rejection of the other parent in a severe PAS scenario. Where the child succumbed, a diagnosis of shared paranoid disorder, otherwise known as folie a deux might also be made. According to Rogers, the first stages of the mother’s delusional disorder were present to some degree during the marriage and exacerbated parental conflicts prior to the separation. However, these subtle signs were not immediately discernible as a psychiatric illness and were only recognized in retrospect, as the mother’s symptoms became worse in the course of the divorce and its attendant disputes. One of the severe PAS cases reported by Dunne and Hedrick appears to be an example of the mother developing delusional disorder. The “subtle signs” were expressed as suspicions during her pregnancy that the father would molest the child, similar to a case encountered by the present author in which suspicions harbored by the mother even before the child was born prompted her to abduct the child a few months later. According to Rogers, the mothers who became delusional were usually the main caretakers for the children. In two cases they were awarded custody during the first round of custody litigation, before more noticeable deterioration in their parenting capabilities had occurred. With continued custody litigation, the intractable nature of their mental illness became apparent and the court gave custody to the father in four of the five cases.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

Some cases of PAS, especially those with false allegations of abuse, may have important features in common with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP) in which parents fulfill their needs vicariously by presenting their child as ill (23). In cases of “classical” MSP, parents repeatedly take their children to doctors for unnecessary, often painful tests and treatments which the physician is induced to provide based on the parent’s misrepresentations. “Contemporary-type” MSP occurs when a parent fabricates an abuse scenario for the child and welcomes or actively seeks out repeated abuse interviews of the child by police, social workers and therapists (23). The concept of contemporary-type MSP elaborates on the idea put forth by Sinanan and Houghton that new types of MSP behavior will evolve in parallel with the evolution of new medical and social services, e.g., the child protection system (33). MSP parents may change or come up with new “symptoms” for the child so as to better elicit the desired response from a particular care provider or an institution offering specialized services. Thus, the same child may be receiving attention simultaneously for fabricated physical symptoms from several medical providers and for fabricated sex abuse from therapists and public agencies who specialize in abuse. Careful evaluation and thorough investigation of sex abuse allegations which turn out to be questionable or false will sometimes bring a parent to the attention of authorities for practicing “classical” as well as “contemporary- type” MSP (34).

As with PAS, MSP is most often practiced by mothers, although fathers and other caretakers are sometimes found to engage in the behavior. MSP parents maintain their psychic equilibrium through control and manipulation of external sources of social gratification, including the child and care providers who serve children. Medical and other care providers are sometimes referred to as the “third party participants” in the MSP, because of their importance in carrying out the parent’s agenda, including false allegations of abuse. There are at least four different presentations where MSP and PAS overlap: 1) an MSP mother may, during the marriage, add false allegations of abuse to the child’s fabricated physical symptoms, thus precipitating the divorce; 2) where the MSP parent feels angry or rejected in divorce, manipulating the child’s medical care and involving the child in false allegations of abuse may serve multiple functions including revenge, maintaining the symbiotic bond with the child and preserving the freedom to continue the MSP behavior; 3) a parent dealing with the losses and stress of divorce may respond with MSP type behavior to obtain social support from the child and care providers; 4) an alienating parent may exhibit MSP type behavior by manipulating the child’s medical care for the primary purpose of furthering the alienation agenda (35).

In PAS with features of MSP, the alienating parent may gain legal authority to control and determine whom the child sees and what treatment is given. The child may be taken to the doctor after visits with the target parent for fabricated or induced symptoms which are attributed to abuse and neglect by the other parent. The child is likely present while the alienating parent makes this negative presentation about the other parent to the doctor, who inadvertently lends support to the denigrating account by listening to it, asking questions and examining the child. The target parent may be rendered ineffective to stop this cycle because providers retained by the alienating parent, and who take her assertions at face value, often refuse to talk to the target parent or allow the target parent access to child’s medical records. The result for the child is what Rand calls MSP type abuse. Rand expands Meadow’s formulation of MSP as a complex form of emotional abuse by applying Garbarino’s five types of psychological maltreatment. Research on MSP shows that it sometimes overlaps with other forms of abuse and neglect (36).

Parental Child Abductors

According to Huntington, post-divorce parental child stealing has been on the increase since the mid-1970s, paralleling the rising divorce rate and the explosion of litigation over child custody (18). An abducting parent views the child’s needs as secondary to the parental agenda which is to provoke, agitate, control, attack or psychologically torture the other parent. It should come as no surprise, then, that post-divorce parental abduction is considered a serious form of child abuse. Psychological maltreatment may predominate or be accompanied by physical abuse and neglect. Abducting parents take the idea that the child would be better off without the other parent to an extreme. Clawar and Rivlin found that would-be abductors often felt frustrated in their efforts to gain access to their child through the legal system and felt “forced” to abduct the child (7). Sometimes, they became so convinced of the terrible scenario they were broadcasting about the target parent that they felt no “choice” but to flee with the child and go into hiding. In order to win the child’s cooperation in maintaining concealment, the abductor must continue to brainwash the child with fear of the target parent and what would happen if the target parent should find the abducting parent and child.

CONCLUSION TO PART I

Review of this first portion of relevant literature and research indicates that Gardner’s concept of PAS has been increasingly discussed and referred to since he introduced the term in 1985. Research on divorce since the early 1980s has been progressively converging with Gardner’s work. Johnston’s studies of high conflict divorce in particular suggest that it is not sufficient to lump PAS with high conflict divorce in general. In its more severe forms, PAS is clearly distinctive. It is also more destructive for children and families and can be irreversible in its effects. As the section on alienating parents indicates, the divorce population includes a significant proportion of parents who have’ psychological problems and disorders. The degree to which such problems are expressed in efforts to alienate the child from the other parent has to be evaluated in the total divorce context, including psychological factors of the child and character and conduct of the target parent. Severe PAS is destructive irrespective of the gender of the alienating parent.

Part I attempts to integrate Gardner’s work on PAS with the relevant literature and research under the following topic headings: The Child in PAS; The Target/Alienated Parent in PAS; PAS and its Third Party Participants; Attorneys on PAS; Forensic Evaluation and PAS; and Interventions for PAS, including strategic combinations of court orders and therapeutic interventions, appointment of a Special Master, appointment of a Guardian ad Litem, changing custody, use of hospitalization and other transitional sites to facilitate custody changes, and the appropriate application of sanctions to help certain programming parents to better act in their children’s best interests.

Whether or not one chooses to use Gardner’s terminology, the problems posed by these cases to families, professionals and the courts are very real. Reluctance to consider Parental Alienation Syndrome by name, along with the diagnostic and interventions it entails, tends to contribute to the perpetuation of the problem in a variety of ways. Like any other label, that of PAS has the potential to be misapplied and misused. Whether or not it is the appropriate diagnosis in a given instance must be determined based on facts of the case, corroborated historical evidence and data from multiple sources. An appropriate diagnosis of PAS, including level of severity as Gardner recommends, can make the difference between allowing a case to go beyond the point of no return or intervening effectively before it is too late.

Deirdre Conway Rand, Ph.D. practices clinical and forensic psychology in Mill Valley, California. She specializes in complex forms of emotional abuse, such as severe Parental Alienation and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. She is the author of articles on the latter and of two chapters in the book, Spectrum of Factitious Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association.

“What I find sad is the constant denial/skewing of statistics by father’s rights and men’s rights advocates that show moms are just as bad.” – Nancy Carroll aka rightsformothers

Moms are worse, Nancy Carroll…. 1100 percent worse... More fathers are winning custody from abusive moms. The only thing “skewed” is your ability to read FACTS and STATISTICS. Dads are far more protective of children than moms are. Read the statistics below:

These days, it is hard to come by an individual who does not know someone who has been divorced, or who has not been divorced themselves. In Hollywood, divorce is seemingly becoming a common occurrence, while paving the way for a society where we’re not only getting married later in life, but also searching for an almost unrealistic level of happiness in our marriage.

Many couples considering divorce refuse to believe that divorce can have a negative effect on their children. But many studies have been conducted that prove otherwise.

A long term study released in 2002 by the Institute for American Values found that “unhappily married adults who divorced were no more likely to report emotional or psychological improvements than those who stayed married.

According to this study, divorce does in fact NOT improve your emotional health. I think it would be safe to assume that this is due to the stress and financial burden divorce inflicts upon couples.

Here’s another fact you might not know…

The Institute for American Values study found that almost eight out of 10 couples who avoided divorce were happily married five years later. Surprising, isn’t it?

Here’s another fact…

Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent’s marriage. Of these, close to half will also see the breakup of a parent’s second marriage.” (Furstenberg, Peterson, Nord, and Zill, “Life Course”)

Many couples divorce, and then remarry without knowing the true cause of their marriage problems in the first marriage. This is why the second marriage divorce rate is even higher than that of the first marriage!

Here’s are some statistics specifically about the effects of divorce on children…

– Studies in the early 1980’s showed that children in repeat divorces earned lower grades and their peers rated them as less pleasant to be around. (Andrew J. Cherlin, Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage –Harvard University Press 1981)

– Forty percent of children growing up in America today are being raised without their fathers. (Wade, Horn and Busy, “Fathers, Marriage and Welfare Reform” Hudson Institute Executive Briefing, 1997)

– Teenagers in single-parent families and in blended families are three times more likely to need psychological help within a given year. (Peter Hill “Recent Advances in Selected Aspects of Adolescent Development” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 1993)

– Compared to children from homes disrupted by death, children from divorced homes have more psychological problems. (Robert E. Emery, Marriage, Divorce and Children’s Adjustment” Sage Publications, 1988)

That statistic is truly amazing, isn’t it? But let me continue on…here are are some more shocking statistics on the effect of divorce on children…

– Children living with both biological parents are 20 to 35 percent more physically healthy than children from broken homes. (Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-being” Journal of Marriage and the Family)

– Most victims of child molestation come from single-parent households or are the children of drug ring members. (Los Angles Times 16 September 1985 The Garbage Generation)

– A Child in a female-headed home is 10 times more likely to be beaten or murdered. (The Legal Beagle, July 1984, from “The Garbage Generation”)

– The study of children six years after a parental marriage breakup revealed that even after all that time, these children tended to be “lonely, unhappy, anxious and insecure”. (Wallerstein “The Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1991)

– Children of divorce are four times more likely to report problems with peers and friends than children whose parents have kept their marriages intact. (Tysse, Burnett, “Moral Dilemmas of Early Adolescents of Divorced and Intact Families. Journal of Early Adolescence 1993)

– Children of divorce, particularly boys, tend to be more aggressive toward others than those children whose parents did not divorce. (Emery, “Marriage, Divorce and Children’s Adjustment, 1988)

– Children of divorce are at a greater risk to experience injury, asthma, headaches and speech defects than children whose parents have remained married. (Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well Being” National Health Interview Survey on Child Health, Journal of Marriage and the Family)

– People who come from broken homes are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide than those who do not come from broken homes. (Velez-Cohen, “Suicidal Behavior and Ideation in a Community Sample of Children” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1988)

– Children of divorced parents are roughly two times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers who benefit from living with parents who did not divorce. (McLanahan, Sandefur, “Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps” Harvard University Press 1994)

– Following divorce, children are fifty percent more likely to develop health problems than two parent families. (Angel, Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health”)

– Of all children born to married parents this year, fifty percent will experience the divorce of their parents before they reach their 18th birthday. (Fagan, Fitzgerald, Rector, “The Effects of Divorce On America)

I hope these statistics may eventually cause you (or your spouse) to seriously consider all the consequences of divorce before you make that final decision.

Based on these statistics, it becomes obvious that children need stable, loving homes with both mom and dad. There is, of course an exception to every rule, and in this case it is households where abuse is taking place. Children should under no circumstances remain in an abusive atmosphere that is unsafe for them.

But if there is no abuse taking place in your marriage and the two of you have simply “grown apart”,or fell out of love, I urge you to seek out help for your marriage before you give up completely. For your children’s sake, even if you’re feeling hopeless right now, get help for your marriage today.

With an 88% success rate, Larry Bilotta’s Marriage Lifeline Program, gives you hope for your marriage – even if you’re the only one who wants to Save your marriage. For FREE, straightforward, no-nonsense advice you can use to save your marriage, with or WITHOUT your spouse’s participation visit Larry’s web site: Stop Your Divorce.

Parental Alienators are both mothers and fathers. Children suffer the effects of hateful moms and dads who keep children away from the other parent. Parental Alienators FAIL the MMPI-II at it is time for us to codify this mental illness in the DSM-IV. – Parental Rights

Presented as the story of an “indefatigable mother’s fierce love,” Pamela Richardson’s A Kidnapped Mind: A Mother’s Heartbreaking Story of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Dundurn 2006) is a memoir of losing her son, Dash, during an eight-year custody battle, then ultimately to death. With an introduction by a “divorce and custody consultant” named Dr. Reena Sommer, this harrowing tale of domestic strife attributes the estrangement of Richardson’s son to “Parental Alienation Syndrome” as triggered by the cruel and insidious “brainwashing” of her son by her ex-husband. Published in the wake of Richardson’s ex-husband’s death, A Kidnapped Mind could have educational value for anyone who cannot imagine the prolonged treachery of an ex-spouse. The Vancouver author formerly worked as a minor television personality before marrying her second husband.

A Kidnapped Mind (Dundurn $24.99) by Pamela Richardson with Jane Broweleit and Walking After Midnight (Raincoast $32.95) by Katy Hutchison both fall into the category allegedly recommended by literary agents [see quote above]. They are compelling non-fiction narratives that revolve around turbulent teenagers.

Pamela Richardson’s story begins when her former husband gains custody of their four-year-old son. As a criminal lawyer, his legal knowledge and his influential friends enabled him to sway the presiding judge. Although this is a highly subjective first person account, written after the former husband and son have died, it seems clear that Richardson’s depiction of the arrogance and blindness of the judicial system has some foundation.

Judges persisted in favouring the father, in spite of evidence of his alcoholism and neglect. Their rulings were bolstered by reports by court-appointed psychologists who recommended that the child remain with his father even while they acknowledged the
father had “a drinking problem” and suffered from Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. From the beginning, he used the child as a means of tormenting his former wife, obstructed her legal access, and poisoned her relationship with her son.

Some brave friends testified to the father’s misdeeds while many others (including one of the mother’s lawyers) backed off, allegedly intimidated by his threats of violence. When the courts belatedly recognized the damage facilitated by earlier decisions, it was too late.

Court decisions can be reversed but not the years of damage they have caused. Richardson brought in experts on Parental Alienation Syndrome and used her considerable wealth in a last desperate attempt to force him into rehab programs. She never gave up the battle for her son, but she was helpless to prevent his downward spiral. At the age of sixteen he jumped to his death from the Granville Street bridge. The book-jacket description of this story as “heart-breaking” is no hyperbole.

The Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, Diana Bryant, has recently launched an extraordinary attack on Australia’s internationally regarded 2006 Family Law amendments, by writing to the Attorney-General and asking him to urgently repeal important provisions within the amendments.

According to Ash Patil, President of shared parenting group Fathers4Equality, “These provisions in the family law act were specifically implemented to reduce the epidemic of false allegations and parental alienation that permeate every corridor of the Family Law Courts, to the clear detriment of the innocent children caught in the cross-fire.

But Bryant wants them removed, and fails to explain how the innocent victims of maliciously false allegations would be protected without them.

James Adams adds, “What is more astonishing it seems is that unlike the parliamentary committee that recommended these laws in the first place, the Chief Justice has not consulted widely before making such an extraordinary intervention (in fact she has not consulted with any fathers’ groups at all).

Rightly or wrongly, Bryant will now be perceived to have compromised views on this issue, denying her the opportunity to have played a unifying force in the process of family law reform in this country, much like the wasted opportunities of her predecessor.”

The two provisions Bryant wants specifically removed include:

*the order of costs, at the Judge’s discretion, against a parent who has been proven to have “knowingly” made false allegation in Court,

and

*unspecified actions, at the Judges’s discretion, against a parent who has purposely alienated or deliberately maligned the children against the other parent.

The importance of these provisions Patil explains. ”These provisions have been specifically implemented to reduce the disturbingly common practices by some separated parents in making contrived and sinister allegations in Court against the other parent, and to otherwise engage in concerted efforts to destroy the relationship between the child and the other parent. This is done knowing full well the children will be irrevocably harmed in the process, both psychologically and emotionally.

Yet it goes on and will continue to go on given human nature, unless we have laws to help it stop.

“So these are ‘good’, modest provisions designed to stop misguided parents from misusing the system and abusing innocent children” were introduced only after extensive community consultation.

According to Adams “These provisions were agreed to by a bi-partisan parliamentary committee (both Labor and Libs/Nats) that went around Australia canvassing the views of all Australians for over two years.

Finally this committee was so appalled at the extent of institutional abuse in the Family Court that it recommended measures to protect innocent children and parents who were victims of contrived allegations and parental alienation by spiteful ex-partners.

” But Bryant wants to override the will of the Australian people and the will of Parliament, and to completely remove all disincentives against lying in the Family Court.

Really soft penalty for a very serious crime.

Patil, who claims that many F4E members are subjected to false allegations, states that “Proving that someone has ‘knowingly’ made false allegations rather than ‘mistakenly’ or ‘recklessly’ is quite a tall order. The standard of proof in these matters is a very tough hurdle to pass, and as a result ‘knowingly false’ allegations have only been proven in a relatively few cases in recent years.

If they are proved, they may result in a costs order, although this has been rarely applied in children’s matters by the judiciary. “Now given that perjury in any other Australian court may result in 10 years or more jail time, one must be mindful of the fact that this is a really soft penalty for a very serious crime.

It is a provision however that can work as a disincentive, albeit a modest one, in dissuading many parents from lying in the Family Court in the first place.” So these are “good”, modest provisions designed as a disincentive to those misguided parents who may in a moment of weakness be tempted to make contrived allegations in Court.

Measured responses to issues of concern Patil and Adams are frustrated by the logic used by the Chief Justice, and Patil adds that “Bryant justifies the need for these changes by suggesting that some people have misunderstood these provisions.

Even if this is true, her suggested fix is a remarkable over-reaction to an issue that could be addressed through a number of simple measures.” “Given that most parents in family law proceedings are either represented by lawyers, have visited a family relationship centre or have sought government funded legal services, a simple review could identify the cause of this misinformation from within these service providers, and provide an opportunity for corrective measures to be implemented.”

Adams wonders why the Chief Justice needs to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and opines that “a request to the Attorney General to implement an educational campaign to educate parents about these provisions would go a long way in addressing any existing misconceptions, and would be a more measured and effective approach to the issue at hand.”

Adams continues “Given the unprecedented nature of these family law amendments, what is required are sensible, well-measured & ultimately timely approaches to these issues, in order to allow for proper outcomes based research to develop. Anything less than this would put at risk the very wellbeing of those we are trying to protect.”

Broader consultations as a first step Fathers4Equality would like to encourage the Chief Justice to put some thought into what checks and measures she would alternatively suggest be implemented, if the current provisions are removed, to protect children from the devastating damage resulting from alienation and perjury in Court.

Given that lying in the Family Court and parental alienation are forms of child abuse, we stress the importance of carefully considering the implications to the welfare of children if these safeguards are removed.

Secondly and in reference to a recent campaign that has promoted a less than accurate reflection of these new laws, we would ask the Chief Justice to consider making a public statement to the effect, as is the case, that no evidence exists of any escalation of child abuse as a result of the new amendments.

This would be an important statement from the Chief Justice in the interests of an informed community discussion on this matter, and would help ensure that the debate is discussed in terms of facts, not innuendo.

Finally, we would like to draw attention to the increasingly under-resourced and overworked child protection authorities in this country, and the fact that too many cases of genuine abuse are not thoroughly investigated, in part because of the level of false allegations emanating from the Family Court.

It must be recognised that for every hour that a child protection officer is investigating a false allegation, it is one hour less protection that can be given to a child in genuine need, and this is a cost that the children of Australia simply cannot afford. Fathers4Equality would be open to discussing these important issues further with the Chief Justice, if she is willing to accept our invitation.

Important Issues in
The Parental Alienation Syndrome

Reena Sommer, Ph.D.

The Parental Alienation Syndrome (P.A.S.) is a burden that a child is forced to bear when one parent fails to recognize their child’s strong need to love and be loved by the other parent. (Mother is Rural Manitoba – name withheld by request)

Parental Alienation Syndrome: The Problem

The Parental Alienation Syndrome (P.A.S.) is the extreme end of a custody battle gone “real bad”. P.A.S. is a most negative consequence of an increasing number of high conflict divorces. In these cases, children become the victims of a relentless and destructive “tug of war” between their parents. It is a war that children cannot win or defend themselves against. It is a war where the “enemy” (the alienating parent) is someone whom the children dearly love and depend upon for their needs to be met. For children, PAS is about loss, insecurity, fear, confusion, sadness, hopelessness and despair. In fact, some experts consider PAS to be a form of child abuse because:

it robs children of the security provided by the bond they once shared with the targeted parent

it embeds in children’s minds falsehoods about the targeted parent that are injurious to their own psyche and their sense of self (i.e., “Mom/Dad never really loved you”; “Mom/Dad is dangerous”; “Mom/Dad has done inappropriate things to you”).

the process of aligning children against the targeted parent often involves threats, lies, manipulations, deprivation and even physical abuse

For the alienating parents, PAS can have several motivators such as:

feeling betrayed or rejected by the targeted parent

revenge

jealousy

fear

insecurity

anger

money

using the children as as pawns to get a better divorce settlement

Defining Parental Alienation Syndrome

The Parental Alienation Syndrome has been variously defined. But here is the definition I tend to rely upon because it is based on my observations of and experiences with divorcing families:

“The Parental Alienation Syndrome is the deliberate attempt by
one parent (and/or guardian/significant other) to distance his/her children
from the other parent and in doing so, the parent engages the children
in the process of destroying the affectional ties and familial bonds that once existed…”

The alienating process develops over time and the distancing between the children and the targeted that occurs includes some or all of the following features:

.

The alienating parent speaks badly or demeans the targeted parent directly to the children

the disparaging comments made by the alienating parent to their children about the targeted parent can be implicit (”I am not sure I will be able to afford to send you to camp because “Mom” or “Dad” does not realize how much you enjoy it”) or explicit (”Mom/Dad” left us because he/she never cared enough about you to keep our family together”)

The alienating parent speaks badly or demeans the targeted parent to others in the presence (or within audible distance) of the children.

The alienating parent discusses with the children the circumstances under which the marriage broke down and blames the targeted parent for its failure.

The alienating parent exposes the children to the details of the parents’ ongoing conflict, financial problems and legal proceedings.

The alienating parent blames the targeted parent for changes in life style, any current hardships; his/her negative emotional state and inability to function as before and conveys this to the children.

Allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children are often made.

Alienated children come to know that in order to please the alienating parent, they must turn against the targeted parent.

These features exemplify the diagnostic criterion set out by the late Dr. Richard Gardner in his discussion of the Parental Alienation Syndrome. Dr. Gardner’s early writings are now supported by empirical research on P.A.S. conducted by numerous academics, thus adding credence to P.A.S.’s validity and existence. Nevertheless, there are still some who have chosen to misinterpret Dr. Gardner’s writings by suggesting that he advocated pedophilia and/or placing children at risk with their abusers. This is clearly a gross distortion of Dr. Gardner’s expressed intent as he emphatically and repeatedly stipulates in his papers that allegations of abuse that are made all too frequently in custody disputes must have no prior history, nor upon investigation are they to be found to have any basis. These types of outlandish criticisms are reflective of misguided thinking, ignorance and an ideological perspective that requires a distortion of reality to give it validity

The Genesis of Parental Alienation Syndrome

//
//

It is believed that P.A.S. arose out of changes to the divorce laws in western society. Starting the 1970’s, family courts began to recognize that both parents had rights and responsibilities when it came to providing for their children post divorce. Out of that recognition, the concept of “joint custody” was born where both parents were allowed to continue in their roles as “legal” parents just as they had been during the marriage. Today, joint custody is considered the norm in most western countries. However, along with this progressive move in divorce laws, there has also been an increase in the incidence of P.A.S. – where children have unfortunately become pawns in their parents’ struggles for alimony, support, the marital home and other assets of the marriage. Parental Alienation Syndrome has only recently been recognized in the divorce literature as a phenomenon occurring with sufficient frequency and with particular defining characteristics as to warrant recognition. Today, the P.A.S. as a byproduct of custody battles is attracting the attention of divorcing parents, child protective agencies, doctors, teachers, clergy, divorce attorneys and divorce courts.

The Politics of Parental Alienation Syndrome

Because the Parental Alienation Syndrome has been linked to the increase in joint custody awards, it is also an issue that has fuelled considerable debate concerning the validity of its existence. Opponents and critics of P.A.S. continue to argue that it does not exist simply because of its absence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Version IV) or the DSM-IV. While there is no dispute that this argument has face validity, it nevertheless neglects the following alternative salient argument: – As with any phenomenon, there is always a lag period between the times it is first identified and when it is fully embraced by the community at large.

There are many examples of this such as:

schizophrenia (it was originally thought that people with this disorder were smitten by the devil)

cancer

attention deficit disorder

dyslexia

HIV and AIDS

There is no doubt that these conditions existed long before they were acknowledged in textbooks or by academic and legal authorities. However, their absence from these authoritative sources did not imply that didn’t exist or lacked validity. What it meant is that for some of these conditions, there was a lengthy lag periods – in some cases, almost a century. Hopefully, this will not be the case for P.A.S. because modern technology makes it possible for the publication of research and transmissions of information to occur much quicker than ever before. But in the meantime, if we are to discount the existence of P.A.S., we are turning our backs on children who are being deprived on their right to love and be loved by both parents. Regardless of the arguments put forth to discount the P.A.S.’s existence and validity, it is difficult to explain how a previously strong, intact, positive and loving relationship between a child and his or her parent quickly disintegrates and transforms into outward hostility toward that parent, usually following separation or some other significant family reorganization involving high levels of conflict.In spite of the divisiveness concerning the validity of the Parental Alienation Syndrome, one issue that few will debate is the fact that too many children are now caught in a “tug of war” between their separated parents.

The Consequences of Parental Alienation Syndrome

Children who are exposed to the ongoing conflict and hostility of their parents suffer tremendously. The guilt they experience when their parents’ first separate, is exacerbated by the added stress of being made to feel that their love and attachment for one parent is contingent on their abandoning the other. Although children are powerless to end the struggle between their parents’, they come to believe that if they turn against one in favor of the other, the unhappiness they experience on an ongoing basis will also end. And if the alienating process is at all successful, its long term consequences for children victimized by it may be even more profound. The main concerns rest in their ability to form healthy and lasting intimate relationships with others as well as how it may negatively influence their self esteem, self concept and general outlook toward life in general. We owe it to children to do what is necessary to prevent this from happening.

Fortunately, legislators are now beginning to see the results of what happens to children when they are left in single mom home, and single mom homes, with boyfriends. Child Abuse statistics as reported by the Department of HHS. It is time for legislators to act to protect children by protecting and insuring dads involvement .

President Obama’s fatherhood initiative bill that failed in 2006 while he was Senator, has been reincarnated by Senator Bayh and it will pass, this time. Although there are some dads that will see this bill as flawed, it is a step in the right direction to bring dads back into relationship with the children and end the cycle of Domestic Violence inflicted on them by the perps who hurt them, Biological Moms and Moms with boyfriends. (BM)

This group, BMs, combined accounts for 44.4 percent of domestic violence against children.

The second group Biological Dads and others (BD), account for 18.8 percent of domestic violence against children. The third group is both mom and dad at 16.8 percent. Children are safer in a married parents home.

The statistics are clear. Children are only marginally more at danger with Biological dad and Other alone by 2 percentage points!!

But with Biological Mom and BF? These perps go up by a whopping 27.5 percent!!!

Statistically, that means after divorce dads and new wife and girlfriend account for 2 percent increase.

On the other hand moms and new husband or boyfriend account for a 27.5 percent increase with biological moms responsible for 22 percent increase!! in violence against their own children!!

It is time for legislators and judges to put dads back in homes, and end the terror that children experience when their daddy is gone……..and it is just mommy!

Figure 3-6 Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2007

Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2007

This pie chart presents victims by relationship to their perpetrators. More than 80 percent (80.1%) of victims were maltreated by at least one parent. Nearly 40 percent (38.7%) of victims were maltreated by their mother acting on her own.

Child abuse is rising dramatically in Australia, according to the first
in-depth study to be released on the issue in a decade.

Data shows cases of abuse against children rose more than 50 per cent between 2006 and 2008.

In the 37 per cent of cases in which a parent was the perpetrator, mothers were responsible for 73 per cent of abuse cases while fathers were the cause of 27 per cent.

The data, the first of its kind to emerge since 1996 and obtained under Freedom of Information (FoI) laws, was compiled by the Western Australia Department of Child Protection.

The figures present a disturbing snapshot of soaring child abuse and its perpetrators. Experts say the data can accurately be applied across Australia.

Applications under FoI for similar data from all other states were refused. The statistics come as the Federal Government has signalled it may roll back the “shared parenting” amendments to the Family Law Act, brought in under the Howard government to give fathers greater access to their children in custody battles.

The data shows fathers are most responsible for sex abuse against children – accounting for more than 85 per cent of cases.

But mothers carry out more than 65 per cent of cases of emotional and psychological abuse and about 53 per cent of physical abuse. They are also responsible for about 93 per cent of cases of neglect.

There were 1,505 cases of abuse of children in WA in 2007-08 – 427 of them were carried out by mothers and 155 by fathers.

In other cases in which the gender of the perpetrator was determined, 463 cases were carried out by women and 353 by men.

A comparison with 2005-06 data shows the number of total cases of abuse had risen more than 50 per cent from 960. In 2005-06, mothers carried out 312 acts of abuse and fathers 165.

University of Western Sydney lecturer Micheal Woods said the findings “undermined the myth that fathers were the major risk factor for their children’s wellbeing”.

“While there are some abusive fathers, there are in fact a larger
proportion of violent and abusive mothers,” Mr Woods said.

Children can get killed when the signs of Parental Alienation are missed

(MMD Newswire) September 14, 2009 — Rekha Kumari-Baker stabs her teenage daughers Davina Baker and Jasmine Baker to death; Frances Elaine Campione drowns her daughters Sophia (1) and Serena (3); Nadine Bernard kills her 18 month old son Jayden Bernard; Claude Mubiangata kills his daughters Alpha and Cyndy and sons Kio and Aaron , aged 3-12; Brian Philcox murders his daughter Amy (7), and son Owen (3) by strapping them into the car and running the exhaust of his car in; James Gumm shoots his son Tyler Gumm (7) and daughter Kylie Gumm (6) at close range; Alysha Green douses her 3 daughters Alexandria Green (5), Adamiria Green (7) and Ariania Green (3) with gasoline and sets them on fire; Michele Sambriski kills daughter Gina (2); and the list continues.These seemingly random acts of insanity have a few commonalities, one of which is that there were signs. Signs of Parental Alienation, also called Hostile Aggressive Parenting. Signs which friends, family and/or professionals missed or ignored. Signs that if taken seriously may have saved some young, innocent lives.

Parental Alienation, also called Hostile Aggressive Parenting, is a set of behaviors that are very harmful to children’s emotional and mental health, and in extreme cases, to their lives. Mild Parental Alienation behaviors, such as bad-mouthing a parent, interfering with parenting time of a child and parent, can quickly escalate to obsessive alienation, such as refusing to give the child any gifts from the rejected parent, denying the existence of the other parent and forcing the child to take sides or risk being rejected by them. At the extreme end of the continuum, Parental Alienation can result in Parental Abduction and Parental Homocide.

These behaviors can occur in intact families, but occur most often in separated and divorced families. The courts and court professionals may then exacerbate the problem by not recognizing the signs of this type of abuse. Forcing a child to look down upon and/or hate another parent can be extremely harmful to children.

It’s time for public and professionals alike to stop ignoring the signs. Parents, and the children affected by these behaviors need quick and effective help, before the behaviors escalate; and before more children are abducted or murdered!

For every child murdered with signs of Parental Alienation, there are thousands more suffering mental and emotional trauma and abuse. How many more children need to suffer before Parental Alienation behaviors are recognized and stopped.

Join us in doing your part in your community to raise awareness of Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting, so that one day, these behaviors will become as socially unacceptable and recognizable as child battery.

“With education and awareness comes the power to stop the abuse of our most innocent-the children!” – Sarvy Emo, Founder of Parental Alienation Awareness Day, April 25th.

Reforming Family Law: What You Can Do Right Now

I began my weekly broadcast this past Tuesday through Talkshoe.com on the Get Your Justice Live network with Lary Holland. For the rest of this week my office has been overwhelmed with the question: so what do we do now?

I’ve been receiving calls and emails from every corner of the the country from people in tragic situations of their own, shaped by the misuse of the family law system and lack of access to true justice. This isn’t a problem easily attacked on a case-by-case basis. If it was, we would have had reform a long time ago. It’s a problem that demands people bring their cases and make themselves heard in a set of unified voices.

In the past, the system has worked against families systematically and – at least in terms of acting in a destructive manner – efficiently. Meanwhile, we have been fighting it one-by-one and ineffectively. It’s time for us to become systematic and efficient in attacking a whole system that has been trampling families’ rights for too long.

I’m creating a new vehicle to enable the system we need to accomplish these ends. Essentially we need to gather key bits of information from every person within our constituency, to begin sorting out the potential classes of litigants and joinder of claims.

The information we need is straightforward and pretty simple:

Basic personal information: name, home address, email and phone;

A very succinct description of the facts giving rise to your own claim;

The specific Constitutional rights you would assert to be violated;

A very brief statement of the remedy you believe would resolve your own issues.

As we learn where the commonality become individual situations can be clearly defined, we can then proceed to put together a class petition, and other claims, primarily in family court.

This is the beginning. We also need considerable help carrying out the tasks we must in order to succeed. So we need people to self-identify skills or abilities they have, i.e. legal research, IT skill, administrative support, database management and administration, etc. With a number of us working together, we will be able to attack the problem more quickly, in essence, to create a rapid response team and legal coalition of activists who will help move our mission forward at “all deliberate speed” – that’s a quote from the United States Supreme Court, by the way.

We also must keep in mind that reform won’t be achieved without costs. We need help with funding! If every person will contribute just what they can, we will reach our destiny sooner. If most of us will trade in a small fraction of what we would have to pay for other legal representation and chip in a few hundred dollars toward the costs, we will move ahead very far and very fast. If everyone of us contributes at least a few dollars, we will show the tribunals we face that we are committed, serious and irrepressible as a unit. If just a few people are able to step forward and fund the largest share of the costs, we will show those who would deprive us of our rights that we are entirely capable of taking them on step-by-step throughout intense litigation.

We can bring about the change we need through the civil rights litigation that may be the only avenue of hope for real change in the time we need. All of our children are growing up fast. As each day passes, we lose one day in their tender young lives to play the roles we should in helping them be the people we want them to be, and keeping the relationships with their parents in tact in the way they should be able.

Forms will be added to the site very soon. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach our office via email at: info@reformfamilynow.org. Tomorrow’s a new day with much hope and expectation! We hope to hear from you soon.

Richard Thomas had sole custody of his two teenage sons for two years until the day in 2007 when they visited their mother and never returned.

Today, Thomas’ sons are in foster care while he fights to regain custody. His battle began when his boys were visiting their mother and she decided to drop them off at a police station with instructions to say they had run away from home. The police believed their story and contacted the Department of Children and Family Services, Thomas said.

“This was a trick to steal custody from me,” Thomas said Thursday night during a candlelight vigil at the Markham courthouse. “She gets to see them every week. I don’t.”

Thomas was one of several individuals at the vigil, which was designed to promote shared parenting after divorce.

Participants held candles, glow sticks, posters and banners and encouraged drivers on Kedzie Avenue to honk their horns in support of parental rights.

“We would love not to be here tonight,” said Kerry Sandusky, of Kankakee. “We would love to be with our kids tonight.”

Sandusky hasn’t seen his son in more than a year.

“The day (his mother) told me she was pregnant, she walked out,” Sandusky said. “I just want to see him – equal time.”

The protesters’ anger was directed in several directions, including family court officials, who they say discriminates against fathers, state agencies that divide families and lawyers who are motivated by money rather than successful outcomes for their clients.

Specifically, participants lashed out at various state agencies for intentionally alienating one parent – often the father – from his children. They added that prolonged custody battles not only harm the children involved, but provide job security to government workers and enhance the government collections business.

State governments receive federal reimbursement based on the amount of child support they collect, so it’s to their advantage to keep families apart, protesters said.

“Everyone has a story. Everyone has something in common,” said vigil organizer Carrie Adams, of Palos Heights.

Adams divorced in 1999 after 19 years of marriage. She had full visitation rights while living Downstate, but was prevented from seeing her children when she moved to the Southland.

“I got close and that’s when the separation began,” she said. “There’s no fairness.”

I read with interest the July 9th [op-ed] in the South End News, “Health-care reform should include child abuse prevention,” by Daniel F. Conley, District Attorney of Suffolk County.

I do agree with DA Conley that funds to fight child abuse are important.

However, what DA Conley does not mention is who is responsible for the majority of child abuse and why this abuse sometimes occurs. According to the 2007 Child Maltreatment Report of the US Department of Health and Human Services, 38.7 percent of victims were at the hands of their mother only, compared to 17.9 percent at the hands of their father only. Mother and father together was 16.8 percent.

So one of the most protective methods to prevent child abuse is to bring back stable families into children’s lives to prevent child abuse. Today 40 percent of all new births are to unwed mothers and over 30 percent of children are raised without a dad in the house, over 20 million kids. From these numbers, one can deduce that there will be an explosion of child abuse with so many children brought up in single parent, mostly mother-only homes.

This explosion of single-mom homes has been due to well-meaning but perverse federal and state laws. They include Title IV(d) – Child Support to States, which actually has perverse incentives to keep a father out of the home and the Violence Against Women’s Act, which was not made gender neutral and has allowed for an explosion of false allegations without due process. The Crime Bill of 1994, which is not equally applied. The Brady Bill, which has sent more dead-broke fathers, non-violent fathers to jail. The tax code head of household provision is biased against fathers. Lack of equal shared parenting laws for fit parents and the lack of criminal penalties for false allegations and for the use of parental alienation hurt too.

If we truly want to make a dent into child abuse, one of the root ways is to bring back fathers into the household, as well as some of the support systems mentioned by DA Conley.

On Sunday, July 12, Boston was literally a tale of two cities. Along Boston’s long waterfront from the Charlestown Navy Yard to the Seaport World Trade Center, thousands upon thousands were touring the tall ships in Boston for Sail Boston 2009. At the same time, over in Dorchester, folks were taking part in the ninth annual Parents’ and Children’s Walk for Peace. While driving through Upham’s Corner in Dorchester, I passed by this peace gathering sponsored by the Bobby Mendes Peace Legacy watching sad but hopeful faces, the relatives of murdered victims carrying their message of peace.

This crowd was much smaller than the one viewing those majestic tall ships but what they lacked in quantity, they made up in their continued drive to drive out violence from their communities. I viewed the march for a few minutes as it turned off Columbia Road onto Dudley Street. Ten minutes down Dudley Street and I am back in my boyhood neighborhood of 45-50 years ago. Things have not been right in my old neighborhood for decades and if things are ever to get right again, it will be because of people like these marchers working for change along with their chanting. Actions speak louder than words. Marches bring people together but once brought together a commitment to real change begins as soon as the march ends. The tall ships docked inside the harbor but there is no safe harbor for young people today as violence robs many of their futures.

Sal Giarratani
Roslindale

A healthy thank you for Senator Hart

On behalf of the 34,000 healthcare workers of 1199SEIU throughout Massachusetts, I would like to thank Senator Jack Hart for meeting with frontline health-care workers from Boston Medical Center. Senator Hart was incredibly gracious in taking time to hear from us as constituents and as caregivers about the challenges we are facing in the health-care industry right now, as we strive to fulfill our mission of delivering quality care to the residents of the South End.

It is good to know that Senator Hart cares about keeping our communities healthy and supports investing in health-care facilities, programs, and job training to ensure quality health-care services and quality jobs for Boston area residents. The local health-care industry is facing major challenges in this economy, and we know everyone needs to work together to make health care better for our patients, consumers, and nursing home residents. The health-care workers of 1199SEIU and Boston Medical Center want to thank the senator for meeting with us and taking a leadership role in that effort.

Victim data were analyzed by relationship to their perpetrators. Nearly 39 percent (38.7%) of victims were maltreated by their mother acting alone (figure 3–6). Nearly 18 percent (17.9%) of victims were maltreated by their father acting alone. Nearly 17 percent (16.8%) were maltreated by both parents.19 ”

Instead, I think I will right a story on this one instead…on my blog site and send it to Glenn Sacks, et.al..

A ban on divorce is what most children would introduce if they ruled the world, according to a poll.

By Alastair Jamieson
Published: 8:52PM GMT 14 Dec 2008

Marital splits were also named the second-worst thing in the world in the survey of under-10s, behind being fat.

The annual survey of 1,600 youngsters found X Factor judge Simon Cowell was more famous than God or Her Majesty the Queen and that the very best things in the world are ‘good looks’.

Asked what rules they would make if they were king or queen of the world, most children replied they would ban divorce – the first time it has come at the top of the list.

Bullying would also be banned and has risen to the number two slot from number three last year and number five the year before.

Around two thirds of the children who took part said they were happy, but 27 per cent were not and a further seven per cent were unsure.

Over 80 per cent of the children questioned thought they would probably marry when they grow up although 17 per cent gave a definite “no” on the subject.

Sixty six per cent wanted to have children, with most of them stopping at one or two. Nearly one third were unsure about becoming parents.

Saturday remains the best day of the week for most, because there is no school and they can stay up late to watch television.

Nearly all of those surveyed had a best friend who was kind, but many said they were in love – the number two reason for having a best friend this year, rising from number five last year and seven the year before.

Being fat topped the list of worst things in the world, rising from number three last year. It was number nine in 2006, but was not featured in the 2005 list.

The nationwide research was carried out by Luton First, sponsors and organisers of the fourth annual National Kids’ Day.

Patricia Murchie, of Luton First, said: “It seems clear that many pre-teens are more concerned than ever with their looks and weight – possibly reflecting media images of glamour, and new educational initiatives in nutrition and healthy eating.”

She said: “This particular age group has some very clear ideas on how the world could be changed for the better, but are very rarely given the opportunity to express them.”

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